*~ ~'W:fc,. t^zytip 
 
 UCICCM LIBK 
 
 CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
 
 - to-
 
 SPARE HOURS" 1 
 
 JOHN BROWN, M.D. 
 
 LL. D., ETC. 
 
 ' ' Cefagotage de tant si diver ses pieces, sefaict en cette condition : qve je tfy 
 
 mets la main, q-ue lors qu'une trap lascJte oysifvett me 
 
 presses' MICHEL DK MONTAIGNB 
 
 THIRD SERIES 
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM 
 AND OTHER PAPERS 
 
 Fourth Edition. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 (Cfce fiiters'iDe Press, 
 1884
 
 I IZ 
 
 * 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
 Stereotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
 
 " Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, 
 Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells 
 In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
 Knowledge is proud, that he has learnt so much ; 
 Wisdom is humble, that he knows no more" 
 
 COWPBR.
 
 VERAX, 
 
 CAP AX SAG AX. 
 
 PERSPICAX EFFICAX. 
 
 TENAX.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE present volume consists of a re-issue of the more 
 purely professional papers published in 1866, to 
 which I have added a few words on Dr. John Scott, Mr. 
 Syme, and Sir Robert Christison. They are addressed more 
 to myself than to anyone else. 
 
 With some true things, and not unimportant, there are 
 some rash and jejune ones ; but though recognizing fully 
 the immense enlargement of our means of knowledge in 
 these latter years, I would put in as strong a word as ever 
 for the cultivation and concentration of the unassisted 
 senses. Microscopes, sphygmographs, etc., are good, but 
 don't let us neglect the drawing out into full power, by the 
 keen and intelligent use of them, those eyes which we can 
 always carry with us. 
 
 It is this aKpt&eia, of the wise and subtle Greek, this ac- 
 curacy (ad and euro) of the stout Roman, that is the eye 
 of the physician and its memory, and it depends greatly 
 on vivid attention in the act of seeing ; -as Dr. Chalmers 
 said, there is a looking as well as a seeing. " I 've lost my 
 spectacles," said good, easy Lord Cuninghame, as he was 
 mooning about Brougham Hall in search of them, when on 
 a visit to his vehement old friend, its Lord, whose mind 
 was always in full spate. "Where did you lay them?" 
 said Brougham. " I forget." "Forget! you should never 
 forget ; nobody should forget. I never forget. You should 
 attend ; I always do. 7 observed where you laid your spec- 
 tacles ; there they are ! ' ' 
 
 The onlv other thino-s I would now mention are, 1st, The
 
 NOTE. 
 
 cramming system of Examinations Surely this mattcr : 
 which is becoming an enormous nuisance and mischief and 
 oppression to examiners as well as examinees, has reached 
 that proverbial point when things begin to mend. Let some 
 strong-brained, wide-knowledged, and merciful man find out 
 the how to mend. 
 
 2d, I am more convinced than ever of the futility, and 
 worse of the Licensing system, and think, with Adam Smith, 
 that a niediciner should be as free to exercise his gifts as an 
 architect or a mole-catcher. The Public has its own shrewd 
 way of knowing who should build its house or catch its 
 moles, and it may quite safely be left to take the same line 
 in choosing its doctor. 
 
 Lawyers, of course, are different, as they have to do with 
 the State with the law of the land. J. B. 
 
 23 RUTLAND STREET, April 12, 1882. 
 
 In order to render this collection of Dr. Brown's papers 
 complete, the American publishers have added to this vol- 
 ume the contents beginning with Miss Stirling Graham, of 
 Duntrune.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOH 
 
 INTRODUCTION ..19 
 
 LOCKE AND STDENHAM , 39 
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE ........ 119 
 
 PH. HENRY MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE . 145 
 
 ART AND SCIENCE 193 
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS 207 
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM . f 221 
 
 FREE COMPETITION IN MEDICINE 235 
 
 EDWARD FORBES 241 
 
 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHORY 251 
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS 261 
 
 DR. JOHN SCOTT AND HIS SON. MR. SYME. SIR ROB- 
 ERT CHRISTISON, BART 283 
 
 Dr. John Scott 285 
 
 Mr. Syme 289 
 
 Sir Robert Christison 300 
 
 Miss STIRLING GRAHAM OF DUNTRUNE .... 305 
 Sm E. LANDSEER'S PICTURE " THERE 'a LIFE IN THE 
 
 OLD DOG YET," ETC., ETC. . . . . . 313 
 
 Halle's Recital 319 
 
 Biggar and the House of Fleming .... 328 
 
 "Giein' himseP a fleg" 329 
 
 Biggar as a Medical School .... 330 
 
 Robert Forsyth, Advocate 332 
 
 Mary Youston and Professional Ethics . . 334 
 
 " Langleathers " 335 
 
 Sin HENRY RAEBURN . 345 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT A WELL . 369
 
 PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1866. 
 
 HESE occasional Papers appeared, with a few 
 exceptions, in the early editions of HOR^E 
 STJBSECIV-E, and were afterwards excluded as 
 being too professional for the general reader. They 
 have been often inquired for since, and are now re- 
 printed with some fear that they may be found a sort 
 of compromise of flesh and fowl, like the duck-billed 
 Platypus neither one thing nor the other not med- 
 ical enough for the doctors, and too medical for their 
 patients. 
 
 If they are of any use, it will be in confirming in the 
 old and impressing on the young practitioners of the art 
 of healing, the importance of knowledge at first hand ; 
 of proving all things, and holding fast only that which is 
 good : of travelling through life and through its cam- 
 paigns, as far as can be, like Caesar relictis impedi- 
 mentis neither burdened overmuch with mere word- 
 knowledge, nor led captive by tradition and routine, nor 
 demoralized by the pestilent lusts of novelty, notoriety, 
 or lucre. 
 
 This is one great difficulty of modern times ; the 
 choosing not only what to know, but what to trust ; 
 what not to know, and what to forget. Often when I 
 see some of our modern Admirable Crichtons leaving 
 their university, armed cap-a-pie, and taking the road,
 
 10 PREFACE. 
 
 where they are sure to meet with lions of all sorts, I 
 think of King Jamie in his full armor " Naebody 
 claur meddle wi' me, and," with a helpless grin, " I daur 
 meddle wi' naebody." Much of this excess of the ma- 
 terial of knowledge is the glory of our age, but much of 
 it likewise goes to its hindrance and its shame, and forms 
 the great difficulty with medical education. Every man 
 ought to consider all his lecture-room knowledge as only 
 so much outside of himself, which he must, if it is to do 
 him any good, take in moderately, silently, selectly ; and 
 by his own gastric juice and chylopoietics, turn, as he best 
 can, in succum et sanguinem. The muscle and the cin- 
 eritious matter, the sense and the power, will follow as 
 matters of course. 
 
 And every man. who is in earnest, who looks at nat- 
 ure and his own proper work with his own eyes, goes 
 on through life demolishing as well as building up what 
 he has been taught, and what he teaches himself. He 
 must make a body of medicine for himself, slowly, stead- 
 ily, and with a single eye to the truth. He must not on 
 every emergency run off to his Cyclopaedias, or, still 
 worse, to his Manuals. 
 
 For in physic, as in other things, men are apt to like 
 ready-made knowledge ; which is generally as bad as 
 ready-made shoes, or a second-hand coat. 
 
 Our ordinary senses, our judgment and our law of 
 duty, must make up the prime means of mastering and 
 prosecuting with honor and success the medical, or in- 
 deed any other profession founded upon the common 
 wants of mankind. Microscopes, pleximeters, the nice 
 tests of a delicate chemistry, and all the transcendental 
 apparatus of modern refinement, must always be more for 
 the few than for the many. Therefore it is that I would
 
 PREFACE. 11 
 
 insist more and more on immediate, exact, intense ob- 
 servation and individual judgment, as the mainstays of 
 practical medicine. From the strenuous, life-long, truth- 
 loving exercise of these, let no amount of science, how- 
 ever exquisite, decoy the student ; and let him who has 
 them not greatly long after, as he will not greatly miss, 
 these higher graces of the profession. What will make 
 a valuable physician or surgeon now, and enable him 
 when he dies to bequeath some good thing to his fellow- 
 men, must in the main be the same as that which made 
 Hippocrates and Sydenham, Baillie and Gregory, what 
 we glory and rejoice to think they were. 
 
 Therefore, my young friend, trust neither too much 
 to others, nor too much to yourself ; but trust every- 
 thing to ascertained truth to principles ; and as chemists 
 can do nothing without a perfect balance, so see to it 
 that your balance, that weighing faculty which God has 
 given you, is kept true in a state, as Locke would 
 say, of " absolute indifferency," turning only to the touch 
 of honest weight. See that dust does not gather on its 
 agate plate and studs, clogging its free edge. See that 
 no one loads it, that you don't load it yourself, for we 
 are all apt to believe that which we desire, and put 
 down its results, as on soul and conscience, at all hazards 
 letting it tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth. 
 
 One can fancy the care with which such men as New- 
 ton, Bishop Butler, Dr. "Wollaston, or our own Faraday, 
 would keep their mental balance in trim, in what a 
 sacred and inmost place, away from all " winds of 
 doctrine," all self-deceit and " cunning craftiness," all 
 rust, all damp, all soiling touch, all disturbing influences, 
 acting as truly as anything either of the Oertlings, or
 
 12 PREFACE. 
 
 Staudinger, or the exquisite Bianchi could turn out, 1 
 turning sweetly and at once, as theirs do, for big 
 weights with the yj^th, and with small with the s-^jjth 
 of a grain. And to keep up our joke, we need not be 
 always pondering ; we should use what the chemists call 
 the arrestment, by which the balance is relieved and 
 rests. We will weigh and judge all the better that we 
 are not always at it ; we may with advantage take a turn 
 at rumination, contemplation, and meditation, all differ- 
 ent and all restful, as well as useful ; and don't let us 
 out of idleness or super-consciousness take to everlasting 
 weighing of ourselves. 
 
 As far as you can, trust no other man's scales, or 
 weights, or eyes, when you can use your own, and let us 
 in a general way look with both our eyes. 
 
 It was a great relief to reflecting mankind, when the 
 stereoscope showed us the use of having two eyes, and 
 that human nature had not been all its days carrying 
 number two as a fox-hunter does his extra horse-shoe, 
 in case of losing number one. 
 
 "We see solidity by means of our two eyes ; we see, so 
 to speak, on both sides of a body ; and we find, what 
 indeed was known before, that the ultimate image, or 
 rather the idea of external objects, is a compromise of 
 two images, a tertium quid, which has no existence but in 
 the brain, somewhere, I suppose, in the optic Chiasma. 
 
 Now there is such a thing as stereoscopic thinking, 
 the viewing subjects as well as objects with our two 
 eyes. Some men of intense nature shut one of the eyes 
 of the mind, as a sportsman does his actual eye when 
 he aims at his game, because then there is a straight line 
 
 1 A friend says, "put in Liebrich and Jung, and thai a good bal- 
 ance should turn with _i 5 th O f a Troy grain " !
 
 PREFACE. 13 
 
 between Ais eye and Ais object; but for the general pur- 
 pose of understanding and mastering the true bulk and 
 projection, the whereat/outs and relations of a subject, it 
 is well to look with both eyes ; and so it comes to pass 
 that the focus of one man's mental vision differs from 
 that of another, probably in some respects from that of 
 all others, and hence the allowance which we should 
 make for other men when they fail to see not only 
 things, but thoughts, exactly as we do. We will find, 
 when we look through their stereoscope, we don't see 
 their image as they do, it may be double, it may be 
 distorted and blurred. I have long thought that upon 
 the deepest things in man's nature those that bind 
 him to duty, to God, and to eternity no man receives 
 the light, no man sees " into the life of things," exactly 
 as any other does, and that as each man of the millions 
 of the race since time began has his own essence, that 
 which makes him himself, and qua, that, distinct from 
 all else, so ultimate truth, when it lies down to rest and 
 be thankful on the optic Thalami of the soul, has in it a 
 something incommunicable, unintelligible to all others. 
 No two men out of ten thousand, gazing at a rainbow, 
 see the same bow. They have each a glorious arch of 
 their own, and while they agree as to what each says of 
 it, still doubtless there is in each of those ten thousand 
 internal glories within the veil, in the chamber of im- 
 agery, some touch, some tint, which differentiates it 
 from all the rest. But to return : look with both eyes, 
 and think the truth as you would speak and act it. It is 
 the rarer virtue, I suspect. 
 
 When the English nobility were overwhelming Ca- 
 nova with commissions, and were ignorant of the exist- 
 ence of their own Flaxman, the generous Italian rebuked
 
 14 PREFACE. 
 
 them by saying, " You English see with our 
 
 and there is much of this sort of seeing in medicine jn 
 
 well as in art and fashion. 
 
 I end with the weighty words of one who I rejoice * 
 still a living honor to our art ; a man uniting much ol 
 the best of Locke and Sydenham with more of himselt 
 and whose small volumes contain the very medulla m* 
 dicince ; a man who has the courage to say, " I wa 
 wrong ; " "I do not know ; " and " I shall wait and 
 watch." 
 
 " I make bold to tell you my conviction, that during 
 the last thirty-six years the practice of medicine has 
 upon the whole " (taking in the entire profession) " gone 
 backwards, and that year after year it is still going back- 
 wards. Doubtless in the mean time there has been 9 
 vast increase of physiological and pathological knowl- 
 edge ; but that knowledge has not been brought to bea", 
 in anything like the degree it might and ought to have 
 been, upon the practice of medicine ; and simply for this 
 reason, that the mass of the profession has never been 
 taught what the practice of medicine means. 
 
 " Had the same office (the settling the kind and 
 amount of professional education) been committed to 
 Gregory, and Heberden, and Baillie, they would, I am 
 persuaded, have made the indispensable subjects of educa- 
 tion very few, and the lectures very few too. 
 
 " They would have made the attendance upon the sick 
 in hospitals a constant, systematic, serious affair. 1 As 
 
 l We wish we saw more time, and more handiwork, more mind spent 
 upon anatomy and surgery, especially clinical surgery. There is a 
 great charm for the young in the visibility of surgical disease and 
 practice, in knowledge at the finger-ends, and the principles and per- 
 formance of a true surgery constitute one of the best disciplines for the 
 office of the physician proper.
 
 PREFACE. 15 
 
 for the "ologies," they would have thrown them all 
 overboard, or recommended them only to the study of 
 those who had time enough, or capacity enough, to pur- 
 sue them profitably." These are golden words ; put them 
 in your scales, and read off and register their worth. 
 You will observe that it is the practice, not the study 
 it is the inner art, not the outer science of medicine 
 which is here referred to as being retrograde. We ques- 
 tion very much if there is as much skill, in its proper 
 sense, now as then. There is to be sure the immense 
 negative blessing of our deliverance from the polyphar- 
 macy aud nimia diligenlia of our forefathers, and there- 
 fore very likely more of the sick get well now than then. 
 But this is not the point in question ; that is whether 
 the men who practise medicine, taken in the slump, 
 have the ability and practical nous that they had five- 
 and-thirty years ago. 
 
 Diagnosis has been greatly advanced by the external 
 methods of auscultation, the microscope, chemical anal- 
 ysis, etc. and there is (I sometimes begin to fear we 
 must say was) a better understanding of and trust in the 
 great restorative powers of nature. The recognition of 
 blood poisons, and of many acute diseases, being in fact 
 the burning out of long-slumbering mischief, the cleans- 
 ing away of the perilous stuff manufactured within, or 
 taken in from without, as seen in a fit of gout ; in all 
 this we have gained more than we have lost (we always 
 lose something), but is the practical power over disease 
 commensurate with these enlargements ? is our sagacity 
 up to our science ? 
 
 The raw " prentice " lad whom Gideon Gray had sent 
 up from Middlemas to the head of Caddon Water, to 
 deliver the herd's wife, and who, finding her alone, and
 
 16 PREFACE. 
 
 sinking from uterine haemorrhage, and having got the 
 huge flaccid deadly bag to contract once more, im- 
 prisoned it in a wooden bicker or bowl, with a tight 
 binder over it, leaving his hands free for other work, 
 this rough and ready lad has probably more of the mak- 
 ing of a village Abercrombie, than the pallid and accom- 
 plished youth who is spending his holidays at the next 
 farm, and who knows all for and against Dr. R. Lee's 
 placental and cardiac claims, and is up to the newest 
 freak of the Fallopian tubes and their jimbrice, or the 
 very latest news from the ovisac and the corpora lutea. 
 
 To be sure, there may be boys who can both know 
 everything, and do the one thing that is needed, but the 
 mental faculties, or capacities rather, that are cultivated, 
 and come out strong in the cramming system, are not 
 those on which we rely for safe, ready, and effectual 
 action. 
 
 We are now, in our plans of medical education, aim- 
 ing too much at an impossible maximum of knowledge 
 in all, meanwhile missing greatly that essential mini- 
 mum in any, which, after all, is the one thing we want 
 for making a serviceable staff of doctors for the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Sagacity, manual dexterity, cultivated and intelligent 
 presence of mind, the tactus eruditus, a kind heart, and 
 a conscience, these, if there at all, are always at hand, 
 always inestimable ; and if wanting, " though I speak 
 with the tongues of men and of angels, I am as sound- 
 ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal ; and though I under- 
 stand all mysteries, and all knowledge, I am nothing." 
 I can profit my patient and myself nothing. 
 
 In the words of Dr. Latham : * 
 
 l Clinical Medicine, Lect. I.
 
 PREFACE. 17 
 
 " In our day there is little fear that students will be 
 spoiled by the recommendation of their instructors to be 
 content with a scanty knowledge, and trust to their own 
 sagacity for the rest. They are not likely to suffer 
 harm by having Sydenham held up as an example for 
 imitation. The fear is of another kind (and it is well 
 grounded), namely, that many men of the best abilities 
 and good education will be deterred from prosecuting 
 physic as a profession, in consequence of the necessity 
 indiscriminately laid upon all for impossible attain- 
 ments" 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Let us take care then what we are about, and be- 
 ware how we change the character of the English prac- 
 titioner of physic. He is sound and unpretending, and 
 full of good sense. What he wants is a little more care- 
 ful, and a somewhat larger instruction in what bears 
 directly upon the practical part of his profession. Give 
 it him (indeed we are giving it him), and he will be- 
 come more trustworthy and more respected every day. 
 But for all that is beyond this, we may recommend it, but 
 we must not insist upon it ; we must leave it for each 
 man to pursue according to his leisure, his opportuni- 
 ties, and his capacity, and not exaggerate it into a 
 matter of necessity for all. When too much is exacted, 
 too little will be learned ; excess on the one hand nat- 
 urally leads to defect on the other." 
 2
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1 
 
 Y objects, in this volume of odds and ends, are, 
 among others, 
 
 I. To give my vote for going back to the 
 old manly intellectual and literary culture of the days 
 of Sydenham and Arbuthnot, Heberden and Gregory ; 
 when a physician fed, enlarged, and quickened his entire 
 nature ; when he lived in the world of letters as a free- 
 holder, and reverenced the ancients, while, at the same 
 time, he pushed on among his fellows, and lived in the 
 present, believing that his profession and his patients 
 need not suffer, though his horce subsecivtz were devoted 
 occasionally to miscellaneous thinking and reading, and 
 to a course of what is elsewhere called " fine confused 
 feeding," or though, at his by-hours he be, as his Gaelic 
 historian says of Hob Roy, a man " of incoherent trans- 
 actions specially in general." For system is not al- 
 ways method, much less progress. 
 
 II. That the study in himself and others of the hu- 
 man understanding, its modes and laws as objective real- 
 ities, and his gaining that power over mental action in 
 
 1 This Introduction contains so mnch of the Preface to the First 
 Edition as relates to the contents of this volume. The. remainder may 
 be found in the Author's Preface prefixed to the first series of Spare 
 Hours.
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 himself and others, which alone comes from knowledge 
 at first-hand, is one which every physician should not 
 only begin in youth, but continue all his life long, and 
 which hi fact all men of sense and origiual thought do 
 make, though it may lie in their minds, as it were, un- 
 formed and without a tongue. 
 
 III. That physiology and the laws of health are the 
 interpreters of disease and cure, over whose porch we 
 may best inscribe hinc sanitas. That it is in watching 
 Nature's methods of cure l in ourselves and in the lower 
 animals, and in a firm faith in the self-regulative, re- 
 cuperative powers of nature, that all our therapeutic in- 
 tentions and- means must proceed, and that we should 
 watch and obey this truly Divine voice and finger, with 
 reverence and godly fear, as well as with diligence and 
 worldly wisdom humbly standing by while He works, 
 guiding, not stemming or withdrawing, His current, and 
 acting as His ministers and helps. Not, however, that 
 we should go about making every man, aud above all, 
 every woman, his and her own and everybody else's 
 doctor, by making them swallow a dose of science and 
 physiology, falsely so called. There is much mischiev- 
 ous nonsense talked and acted on, in this direction. The 
 
 l " ' That there is no curing diseases by art, without first knowing 
 how they are to be cured by nature,' was the observation of an an- 
 cient physician of great eminence, who very early in my life superin- 
 tended niy medical education, and by this axiom all my studies and 
 practice have been regulated." Grant on Fevers, Loud. 1771. An 
 admirable book, and to be read still, as its worth, like that of nature, 
 never grows old, naturam non pati senium. We would advise every 
 young physician who is in practice to read this unpretending and nov 
 little-known book, especially the Introduction. Any "ancient physi 
 cian," and the greater his eminence and his age the better, so that th^ 
 eminence be real, who takes it up, will acknowledge that the author hai 
 done what he said, made " this axiom " the rule, of his life and doctrine
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 physiology to be taught in schools, and to our clients 
 the public, should be the physiology of common sense, 
 rather than that of dogmatic and minute science ; and 
 should be of a kind, as it easily may be, which will de- 
 ter from self-doctoring, while it guides in prevention and 
 conduct ; and will make them understand enough of the 
 fearful and wonderful machinery of life, to awe and 
 warn, as well as to enlighten. 
 
 Much of the strength and weakness of Homoeopathy 
 lies in the paltry fallacy, that every mother, and every 
 clergyman, and " loose woman," as a wise friend calls 
 the restless public old maid, may know when to admin- 
 ister aconite, arsenicum. and nux, to her child, his entire 
 parish, or her " circle." Indeed here, as elsewhere, 
 man's great difficulty is to strive to walk through life, 
 and through thought and practice, in a straight line ; to 
 keep in medio in that golden mean, which is our true 
 centre of gravity, and which we lost in Eden. "We 
 all tend like children, or the blind, the old, or the tipsy, 
 to walk to one side, or wildly from one side to the other : 
 one extreme breeds its opposite. Hydropathy sees and 
 speaks some truth, but it is as in its sleep, or with one 
 eye shut, and one leg lame ; its practice does good, much 
 of its theory is sheer nonsense, and yet it is the theory 
 that its masters and their constituents doat on. 
 
 If all that is good in the Water-Care, and in Rubbing, 
 and in Homeopathy, were winnowed from the false, the 
 useless, and the worse, what an important and permanent 
 addition would be made to our operative knowledge ! 
 to our powers as healers ! and here it is, where I cannot 
 help thinking that we have, as a profession, gone astray 
 in our indiscriminate abuse of all these new practices 
 and nostrums : they indicate, however coarsely and
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 stupidly, some want in us. There is in them all some- 
 thing good, and if we could draw to us, iustead of driv- 
 ing away from us, those men whom we call, and in the 
 main truly call, quacks, if we could absorb them with 
 a difference, rejecting the ridiculous and mischievous 
 much, and adopting and sanctioning the valuable little, 
 we and the public would be all the better off. Why 
 should not " the Faculty " have under their control and 
 advice, and at their command, rubbers, and shampooers, 
 and water men, and milk men, and grape men, and 
 cudgelling men, as they have cuppers, and the like, in- 
 stead of giving them the advantage of crying out " per- 
 secution," and quoting the martyrs of science from 
 Galileo downwards. 
 
 IV. As my readers may find to their discontent, the 
 natural, and, till we get into " an ampler aether and 
 diviner air," the necessary difference between specula- 
 tive science and practical art is iterated and reiterated 
 with much persistency, and the necessity of estimating 
 medicine more as the Art of healing than the Science of 
 diseased action and appearances, 1 and its being more 
 
 l When the modern scientific methods first burst on our medical 
 world, and especially, when morbid anatomy in connection with phys- 
 ical signs (as distinguished from purely vital symptoms, an incom- 
 plete but convenient distinction), the stethoscope, microscope, etc., it, 
 as a matter of course, became the rage to announce, with startling 
 minuteness, what was the organic condition of the interior as if a 
 watchmaker would spend most of his own time and his workmen's in 
 debating on the beautiful ruins of his wheels, instead of teaching him- 
 self and them to keep the totum quid clean and going, winding it up 
 before it stopped. Renowned clinical professors would keep shiver- 
 ing, terrified, it might be dying, patients sitting up while they ex- 
 hibited their powers in auscultation and pleximetry, etc., the poor 
 students, honest fellows, standing by all the while and supposing this 
 to be their chief end ; and the same eager, admirable, and acute per 
 former, after putting down everything in a book, might be seen mov
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 teachable and better by example than by precept, in- 
 sisted on as one of the most urgent wants of the time. 
 But I must stick to this. Regard for, and reliance on 
 a person, is not less necessary for a young learner than 
 belief in a principle, or an abstract body of truth ; and 
 here it is that we have given up the good of the old 
 apprenticeship system, along with its evil. This will 
 remedy, and is remedying itself. The abuse of huge 
 classes of mere hearers of the law, under the Professor, 
 
 ing on to the lecture-room, where he told the same youths what they 
 would Jind on dissection, with more of minuteness than accuracy, deep- 
 ening their j'oung wonder into awe, and begetting a rich emulation in 
 all these arts of diagnosis, while he forgot to order anything for the 
 cure or relief of the disease ! This actually happened in a Parisian 
 hospital, and an Englishman, with his practical turn, said to the 
 lively, clear-headed professor, " But what are you going to give 
 him ? " " Oh ! " shrugging his shoulders, "I quite forgot about that ; " 
 possibly little was needed, or could do good, but that little should 
 have been the main thing, and not have been shrugged at. It is told 
 of another of our Gallic brethren, that having discovered a specific for 
 a skin disease, he pursued it with such keenness on the field of his 
 patient's surface, that he perished just when it did. On going into 
 the dead-house, our conqueror examined the surface of the subject 
 with much interest, and some complacency not a vestige of disease 
 or life, and turning on his heel, said, " II est mort gueri ! " Cured 
 indeed ! with the disadvantage, single, but in one sense infinite, of the 
 man being dead ; dead, with the advantage, general, but at best finite, 
 of the scaly tetter being cured. 
 
 In a word, let me say to my young medical friends, give more at- 
 tention to steady common observation the old Hippocratic aicpi'/Jeia, 
 exactness, literal accuracy, precision, niceness of sense ; what Syden- 
 ham calls the natural history of disease. Symptoms are universally 
 available; they are the voice of nature; signs, by which I mean more 
 artificial and refined means of scrutiny the stethoscope, the micro- 
 scope, etc. are not always within the power of every man, and, with 
 all their help, are additions, not substitutes. Besides, the best natural 
 and unassisted observer the man bred in the constant practice of keen 
 discriminating insight is the best man for all instrumental niceties; 
 and above all. the faculty and habit of gathering together the entire
 
 2-i INTRODUCTION. 
 
 has gone, I hope, to its utmost, and we may now look 
 for the system breaking up into small bands of doers 
 acting under the Master, rather than multitudes of mere 
 listeners, and not unoften sleepers. 
 
 Connected with this, I cannot help alluding to the 
 crying and glaring sin of publicity, in medicine, as in- 
 deed in everything else. Every great epoch brings 
 with it its own peculiar curse as well as blessing, and 
 in religion, in medicine, in everything, even the most 
 
 symptoms, and selecting what of these are capital and special ; and 
 trusting in medicine as a tentative art, which, eren at its utmost con- 
 ceivable perfection, has always to do with variable quantities, and is 
 conjectural and helpful more than positive and all-sufficient, content 
 with probabilities, with that measure of uncertainty which experience 
 teaches us attaches to even-thing human and conditioned. Here are the 
 candid and wise words of Professor Syme: "In performing an opera- 
 tion upon the living body, we are not in the condition of a blacksmith 
 or carpenter, who understands precisely the qualities of the materials 
 upon which he works, and can depend on their being always the same. 
 The varieties of human constitution must always expose our proceed- 
 ings to a degree of uncertainty, and render even the slightest liberties 
 possibly productive of the most serious consequences; so that the ex- 
 traction of a tooth, the opening of a vein, or the removal of a small 
 tumor, has been known to prove fatal. Then it must be admitted 
 that the most experienced, careful, and skilful operator may commit 
 mistakes; and I am sure that there is no one of the gentlemen present 
 who can look back on his practice and say he has never been guilty of 
 an error." This is the main haunt and region of his craft. This it is 
 that makes the rational practitioner. Here again, as in religion, men 
 now-a-days are in search of a sort of fixed point, a kind of demonstra- 
 tion and an amount of certainty which is plainly not intended; for 
 from the highest to the lowest of these compound human knowledges, 
 "probability," as the great and modest Bishop Butler says, "is the 
 rule of life ; " it suits us best, and keeps down our always budding 
 self-conceit and self-confidence. Symptoms are the body's mother- 
 tongue; signs arc in a foreign language; and there is an enticing ab- 
 sorbing something about them, which, unless feared and understood, 
 I have sometimes found standing in the way of the others, which are 
 the staple of our indications, always at hand, and open to all.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 sacred and private, this sin of publicity now-a-days most 
 injuriously prevails. Every one talks of everything and 
 everybody, and at all sorts of times, forgetting that the 
 greater and the better the inner part, of a man, is, 
 and should be private much of it more than private. 
 Public piety, for instance, which means too much the 
 looking after the piety of others and proclaiming our 
 own the Pharisee, when he goes up to the temple to 
 pray, looking round arid criticising his neighbor the pub- 
 lican, who does not so much as lift up his eyes even to 
 heaven the watching and speculating on, and judging 
 (scarcely ever with mercy or truth) the intimate and 
 unspeakable relations of our fellow-creatures to their 
 infinite Father, is often not coexistent with the inward 
 life of God in the soul of man, with that personal state, 
 which alone deserves the word piety. 
 
 So also in medicine, every one is for ever looking 
 after, and talking of everybody else's health, and advis- 
 ing and prescribing either his or her doctor or drug, and 
 that wholesome modesty and shamefacedness, which I 
 regret to say is now old-fashioned, is vanishing like other 
 things, and is being put off, as if modesty were a mode, 
 or dress, rather than a condition and essence. Besides 
 the bad moral habit this engenders, it breaks up what is 
 now too rare, the old feeling of a family doctor there 
 are now as few old household doctors as servants the 
 familiar, kindly, welcome face, which has presided through 
 generations at births and deaths ; the friend who bears 
 about, and keeps sacred, deadly secrets which must be 
 laid silent in the grave, and who knows the kind of stuff 
 his stock is made of, their " constitutions," all this 
 sort of thing is greatly gone, especially in large cities, 
 and much from this love of change, of talk, of having
 
 26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 everything explained, 1 or at least named, especially if it 
 be in Latin, or running from one " charming " specialist 
 to another ; of doing a little privately 2 and dishonestly 
 
 1 Dr. Cullen's words are weighty : " Neither the aeutest genius nor 
 the soundest judgment will avail in judging of a particular science, ill 
 regard to which they have not been exercised. / have been olliyed to 
 please my patients sometimes with reasons, and I hare found (hat any 
 will pass, even with able divines and acute lawyers; the same will past 
 with the husbands as with the wives." 
 
 2 I may seem too hard on the female doctors, but I am not half so 
 bard or so bitter as the old Guy (or, as his accomplished and best edi- 
 tor, M. Reveille'-Parise, insists on calling him, Gui) Patin. I have af- 
 terwards called Dr. J. H. Davidson our Scottish Guy Patin; and any 
 one who knew that remarkable man, and knows the Letters of the 
 witty and learned enemy of Mazarin, of antimony, and of quacks, 
 will acknowledge the likeness. Patin, speaking of a certain Made- 
 moiselle de Label, who had interfered with his treatment, says: " C'est 
 un sot animal qu'une femme qui se niele de notre metier." But the pas- 
 sage is so clever and so characteristic of the man, that I give it in full : 
 "Noel Falconet a port4 lui-meme la lettre a Mademoiselle de Label; 
 son fils est encore malade. Elle ne m'a point voulu croire ; et au lieu 
 de se servir de mes remedes, elle lui a donne 1 des siens, quo aynito re~ 
 cessi. C'est un sot animal qu'une femme qui se mele de notre metier: 
 cela n'appartient qu'a ceux qui out un haut-de-chausses et la tt-te bien 
 faite. J'avois fait, saigner et purger ce malade; il se portoit mieux; 
 elle me dit ensuite que mes purgatifs lui avoient fait mal, et qu'elle le 
 purgeoit de ses petits remedes, dout elle se servoit a Lyon autrefois. 
 Quand j'eus reconnu par ces paroles qu'elle ne faisait pas grand e'tat 
 de mes ordonnances, je la qurttai la et ai pratique 1 le pre'cepte, sinite 
 mortuos sepelire mortuos. Peut-etre pourtant qu'il en re'chappera, ce 
 }ue je souhaite de tout mon coeur ; car s'il mouroit, elle diroit que ce 
 fceroit moi qui 1'aurois tue 1 . Elle a temoigne" a Noel Falconet qu'elle 
 avoit regret de m'avoir faclie 1 , qu'elle m'enverroit de 1'argent (je n'ea 
 ai jamais pris d'eux). Feu M. Hautin disoit: Per monachos et mo- 
 nachas, cognatos et cognatas, vicinos et ricinas medicus nonfacit res 
 suas. Ce u'est pas ii faire a, une femme de pratiquer la methode de Ga- 
 lien, res est sublimioris intelligent ice ; il faut avoir 1'esprit plus fort. 
 Mulier est animal dimidiati intellectus; il faut qu'elles filent leur que- 
 nouille, ou an moins, comnie dit Saint Paul, contineant se in silentio. 
 Feu M. de Villeroi, le grand secretaire d'Etat, qui avoit une mauvaise 
 femme (il n'e"toit pas tout seul, et la race n'en e?* oas morte), disoit
 
 INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 K) one's self or the children with the globules ; of going 
 to see some notorious great man without telling or tak- 
 ing with them their old family friend, merely, as they 
 say, " to satisfy their mind," and of course, ending in 
 leaving, and affronting, and injuring the wise and good 
 man. I don't say these evils are new, I only say they 
 are large and active, and are fast killing their opposite 
 virtues. Many a miserable and tragic story might be 
 told of mothers, whose remorse will end only when they 
 themselves lie beside some dead and beloved child, 
 whom they, without thinking, without telling the father, 
 without " meaning anything," have, from some such 
 grave folly, sent to the better country, leaving them- 
 selves desolate and convicted. Publicity, itching ears, 
 want of reverence for the unknown, want of trust in 
 goodness, want of what we call faith, want of gratitude 
 and fair dealing, on the part of the public ; and on the 
 part of the profession, cupidity, curiosity, restlessness, 
 ambition, false trust in self and in science, the lust and 
 haste to be rich, and to be thought knowing and om- 
 niscient, want of breeding and good sense, of common 
 honesty and honor, these are the occasions and results 
 of this state of things. 
 
 I am not, however, a pessimist, I am, I trust, a 
 rational optimist, or at least a meliorist. That as a race, 
 and as a profession, we are gaining, I don't doubt ; to 
 disbelieve this, is to distrust the Supreme Governor, and 
 to miss the lesson of the time, which is, in the main, 
 
 qu'en latin une femme dtoit mulier, c'est-a-dire mule hitr, mule demain, 
 mule tottjoura." 1 
 
 1 Salomon a dit quelqiio part : Tl n'y a jtax de malice au-dessus rle celle 
 d'uneftmme. Krasine mit ac&t5 cette reflexion: Vous observerez qiSil n'y 
 wait pas encore de moines. (II. p.)
 
 2S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 enlargement and progress. But we should all do our 
 best to keep what of the old is good, and detect, and 
 moderate, and control, and remove what of the new is 
 evil. In saying this, I would speak as much to myself 
 as to my neighbors. It is in vain, that yvwdi creauToy 
 (know thyself) is for ever descending afresh and silently 
 from heaven like dew ; all this in vain, if eywye yiyvtoo-Kta 
 (I myself know, I am as a god, what do I not know !) 
 is for ever speaking to us from the ground and from 
 ourselves. 
 
 Let me acknowledge and here the principle or 
 habit of publicity ha's its genuine scope and power the 
 immense good that is in our time doing by carrying 
 Hygienic reform into the army, the factory, and the 
 nursery down rivers and across fields. I see in all 
 these great good ; but I cannot help also seeing those 
 private personal dangers I have spoken of, and the 
 masses cannot long go on improving if the individuals 
 deteriorate. 
 
 There is one subject which may seem an odd one for 
 a miscellaneous book like this, but one in which I have 
 long felt a deep and deepening concern. To be brief 
 and plain, I refer to man-midwifery, in all its relations, 
 professional, social, statistical, and moral. I have no 
 space now to go into these fulfy. I may, if some one 
 better able does not speak out, on some future occasion 
 try to make it plain from reason and experience, that 
 the management by accoucheurs, as they are called, of 
 natural labor, and the separation of this department of 
 the human economy from the general profession, has 
 been a greater evil than a good ; and that we have little 
 to thank the Grand Monarque for, in this as in many 
 other things, when, to conceal the shame of the gentle
 
 INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 La Valliere, he sent for M. Chison instead of the cus- 
 -omary sage-femme. 
 
 Any husband or wife, any father or mother, who will 
 look at the matter plainly, may see what an inlet there 
 is here to possible mischief, to certain unseemliness, and 
 to worse. Nature tells us with her own voice what is 
 fitting in these cases ; and nothing but the omnipotence 
 of custom, or the urgent cry of peril, terror, and agony, 
 what Luther calls miserrima miseria, would make her 
 ask for the presence of a man on such an occasion, when 
 she hides herself, and is in travail. And as in all such 
 cases, the evil reacts on the men as a special class, and 
 on the profession itself. 
 
 It is not of grave moral delinquencies I speak, and the 
 higher crimes in this region ; it is of affront to Nature, 
 and of the revenge which she always takes on both par- 
 ties, who actively or passively disobey her. Some of my 
 best and most valued friends are honored members of 
 this branch ; but I believe all the real good they can do, 
 and the real evils they can prevent in these cases, would 
 be attained, if instead of attending to their own lu- 
 dicrous loss of time, health, sleep, and temper, some 
 200 cases of delivery every year, the immense majority 
 ^f which are natural, and require no interference, but 
 have nevertheless wasted not a little of their life, their 
 patience, and their understanding they had, as I would 
 always have them to do, and as any well-educated reso- 
 ..ute doctor of medicine ought to be able to do, confined 
 themselves to giving their advice and assistance to the 
 midwife when she needed it. 
 
 I know much that may be said against this igno- 
 rance of midwives ; dreadful effects of this, etc. ; but to 
 all this I answer, Take pains to educate carefully, and to
 
 30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pay well, and treat well these women, and you may 
 safely regulate ulterior means by the ordinary general 
 laws of surgical and medical therapeutics. Why should 
 not " Peg Tamson, Jean Simsou, and Alison Jaup," 1 be 
 sufficiently educated and paid to enable them to conduct 
 victoriously the normal obstetrical business of " Middle- 
 mas " and its region, leaving to " Gideon Gray " the ab- 
 normal, with time to cultivate his mind and his garden, 
 or even a bit of farm, and to live and trot less hard than 
 he is at present obliged to do? Thus, instead of a man 
 in general practice, and a man, it may be, with an area 
 of forty miles for his beat, sitting for hours at the bed- 
 side of a healthy woman, his other patients meanwhile 
 doing the best or the worst they can, and it may be, as 
 not unfrequently happens, two or more labors going on 
 at once ; and instead of a timid, ignorant, trusting 
 woman to whom her Maker has given enough of 
 " sorrow," and of whom Shakespeare's Constance is the 
 type, when she says, " I am sick, and capable of fears ; 
 I am full of fears, subject to fears ; I am a woman, and 
 therefore naturally born to fears " being in this hour 
 of her agony and apprehension subjected to the artificial 
 misery of fearing the doctor may be too late, she might 
 have the absolute security and womanly hand and heart 
 of one of her own sex. 
 
 This subject might be argued upon statistical grounds, 
 and others ; but I peril it chiefly on the whole system 
 being unnatural. Therefore, for the sake of those who 
 have borne and carried us, and whom we bind ourselves 
 to love and cherish, to comfort and honor, and who suffer 
 so much that is inevitable from the primal curse, for 
 its own sake, let the profession look into this entire sub- 
 1 Vide Sir Walter Scott's Surgeon's Daughter.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 ject in all its bearings, honestly, fearlessly, and at once. 
 Child-bearing is a process of health ; the exceptions are 
 ew indeed, and would, I believe, be fewer if we doctors 
 would let well alone. 
 
 One or two other things, and I am done. I could 
 have wished to have done better justice to that noble 
 class of men our country practitioners, who dare not 
 B^eak out for themselves. They are underpaid often 
 tot paid at all underrated, and treated in a way that 
 the commonest of their patients would be ashamed to 
 treat his cobbler. How is this to be mended? It is 
 mending itself by the natural law of starvation, and de- 
 scent per deliquium. Generally speaking, our small 
 towns had three times too many doctors, and, therefore, 
 each of their Gideon Grays had two thirds too little to 
 live on ; and being in this state of chronic hunger they 
 were in a state of chronic anger at each other not less 
 steady, with occasional seizures more active and acute ; 
 they had recourse to all sorts of shifts and meannesses 
 to keep soul and body together for themselves and their 
 horse, whilst they were acting with a devotion, and, gen- 
 erally speaking, with an intelligence and practical be- 
 neficence, such as I know, and I know them well, 
 nothing to match. The gentry are in this, as in many 
 country things, greatly to blame. They should cherish, 
 and reward, and associate with those men who are in all 
 essentials their equals, and from whom they would gain 
 as much as they give ; but this will right itself as civil- 
 ized mankind return, as they are doing, to the country, 
 and our little towns will thrive now that lands change, 
 lairds get richer, and dread the city as they should. 
 
 The profession in large towns might do much for their 
 friends who can do so little for themselves. I am a vol-
 
 32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 untary in religion, and would have all State churches 
 abolished ; but I have often thought that if there was a 
 class that ought to be helped by the State, it is the coun- 
 try practitioners in wild districts ; or what would be bet- 
 ter, by the voluntary association of those in the district 
 who have means in this case creeds would not be 
 troublesome. However, I am not backing this scheme. 
 I would leave all these things to the natural laws of 
 supply and demand, with the exercise of common hon- 
 esty, honor, and feeling, in this, as in other things. 
 
 The taking the wind out of the rampant and abomi 
 nable quackeries and patent medicines, by the State with- 
 drawing altogether the protection and sanction of its 
 stamp, its practical encouragement (very practical), and 
 giving up their large gains from this polluted and wicked 
 source, would, I am sure, be a national benefit. Quack- 
 ery, and the love of being quacked, are in human nature 
 as weeds are in our fields ; but they may be fostered 
 into frightful luxuriance, in the dark and rich soil of 
 our people, and not the less that Her Majesty's super- 
 scription is on the bottle or pot. 
 
 I would beg the attention of my elder brethren to 
 what I have said on Medical Reform and the doctrine of 
 free competition. I feel every day more and more its 
 importance and its truth. I rejoice many ways at the 
 passing of the new Medical Bill, and the leaving so 
 much to the discretion of the Council ; it is curiously 
 enough almost verbatim, and altogether in spirit, the 
 measure Professor Syme has been for many years advo- 
 cating through good and through bad report, with his 
 characteristic vigor and plainness. Holloway's Oint- 
 ment, or Parr's Pills, or any such monstra horrenda, at- 
 tain their gigantic proportions and power of doing rnis-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 chief, greatly by their having Governmental sanction 
 and protection. Men of capital are thus encouraged to 
 go into them, and to spend thousands a year in adver- 
 tisements, and newspaper proprietors degrade themselves 
 into agents for their sale. One can easily see how 
 harmless, if all this were swept away, the hundred Hol- 
 loways, who would rise up and speedily kill nobody but 
 each other, would become, instead of one huge inap- 
 proachable monopolist ; this is the way to put down 
 quackery, by ceasing to hold it up. It is a disgrace to 
 our nation to draw, as it does, hundreds of thousands a 
 year from these wages of iniquity. 
 23 RUTLAND STREET, October 30, 1858.
 
 POST-PREFACE. 
 
 f|WO hitherto unpublished letters of Locke and 
 Sydenham, I had the good fortune to find in 
 the British Museum, that among the best 
 and chiefest of our national glories, where, strange to 
 say, I found myself for the first time the other day. 
 
 Not to my sorrow, for I am not by any means sure 
 that it is not an advantage to be not young before seeing 
 and feeling some things. A man at all capable of ideal 
 exquisiteness has a keener because a deeper sense of the 
 beauty of the Clytie of the awfulness of those deep- 
 bosomed Fates, resting in each other's laps, "careless 
 diffused " after,- than before he finds himself 
 "Nel mezzo del caramin di nostra vita." 
 
 Time and suffering, and self-knowledge, the mystery, 
 the vanity and the misery of life, quicken and exalt our 
 sense and relish of that more ample greatness, that more 
 exact goodness, that sense of God, 1 which the contem- 
 
 1 In a certain and large sense Malebranche is right. We see every- 
 thing in God, as well as God in everj-thing; all beauty of thought, 
 passion, affection, form, sound, color, and touch, whatever stirs our 
 mortal and immortal frame, not only comes from, but is centred in 
 God, in his unspeakable perfections. This we believe to be not only 
 .norally, but in its widest sense, philosophically true, as the white 
 light ravs itself out into the prismatic colors, making our world what 
 it is as if all that we behold were the spectrum of the unseen Eternal. 
 In that thinnest but not least great of his works, Mr. Euskin's sec-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 plation of Nature and Art at their utmost of power and 
 beauty ought always to awaken and fill. It is the clear 
 shining after the rain. Pain of body or of mind, by a 
 double-edged, but in the main, merciful law of God and 
 of our nature, quickens and exalts other senses besides 
 that of itself. Well is it that it does. Sweetness is 
 sweeter than before to him who knows what bitterness 
 has been, and remembered sweetness too. The disloca- 
 tion of the real and the ideal the harsh shock of which 
 comes on most men before forty, and OB most women 
 sooner, when the two lines run on together sometimes 
 diverging frightfully, for the most part from their own 
 fault but never meet, makes him- look out all the 
 more keenly for the points where he can safely shunt 
 himself; it is a secret worth knowing and acting upon, 
 and then you can go and come as you list. This is our 
 garden, every one's garden of the Hesperides, into which 
 if we only know the right airt and door it is small 
 and lowly, and made for children, or those who can 
 stoop and make themselves so for the nonce we may 
 at any time enter, and find sunshine and shadows, and 
 soft airs and clear waters, and pluck the golden apples 
 from the laden boughs. And though the Dragon is 
 there, he is our own Dragon ; and it adds to the glory 
 of the new-born day, and gives a strange flavor of peril 
 
 and volume of Modern Painters, there may be found the best un- 
 folding I know of the doctrine that all sublimity and all beauty is 
 typical of the attributes of God. I give his divisions, which are them- 
 selves eloquent: Typical Beauty: first, of Infinity, or the type of 
 Divine Incomprehensibility ; second, of Unity, or the type of Divine 
 Comprehensiveness ; third, of Repose, or the type of Divine Perma- 
 nence ; fourth, of Symmetry, or the type of Divine Justice ; fifth, of 
 Purity, or the type of Divine Energy ; lastly, of Moderation, or the 
 type of Government by Law.
 
 36 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to its innocent brightness, when we see on the horizon 
 that he is up too, and watching, lying sinuous and im- 
 mense all across the Delectable Mountains, witli his chin 
 on his paw on the biggest hill, and the sunlight touch- 
 ing up his scales with gold and purple. 
 
 This is our Paradise at hand next door, next room, 
 you are in it by thinking of it, it comes into you if you 
 open your door, guarded only to those who have been 
 cast out of it, and under whose flaming sword the small 
 people may creep, and the only serpent in which each 
 must himself bring, or be ; and then, best of all if 
 you are in the right garden this ideal fruit is among 
 the best of whets and tonics, and strengthened for the 
 hard every-day work, and still harder night-and-day suf- 
 fering of that real world, which is not much of a garden, 
 but rather a field and a road, with graves as milestones. 
 This in its own place, wisely, temperately enjoyed, ena- 
 bles many a man and many a woman to lighten some- 
 what 
 
 " The heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world," > 
 
 and go on their way, if not rejoicing, at least patient 
 and thankful ; and, like the heroic apostle, sorrowful, 
 yet always rejoicing. 
 
 I am therefore less sorry than glad that I was as old 
 as Cortez when he first gazed on the Pacific, before I 
 saw the Pyrenees, and the Venus of Melos, and Ti- 
 tian's Entombment, and Paul Veronese's Cain, with his 
 wife and child, and the Rhine under a midnight thunder- 
 storm at Coblentz, and the Turners at Farnley Hall; 
 and it pleases me more than the reverse, to think that 
 I have the Alps, and Venice, and Memphis, and old 
 Thebes, yet to see, and a play or two of Shakespeare's
 
 INTRODUCTION. 37 
 
 to read, and the Mangostein to pluck and eat, and Niag- 
 ara to hear. 
 
 But one thing I am glad to have seen, and not to 
 have seen it till I did, and that is the Panizzi Reading 
 Room in the British Museum, where you may any day 
 see three hundred, feeding silently like one, browsing 
 each as if alone in his own chosen pasture. There can 
 never be any nobler or more fitting monument to that 
 great man, who is the informing spirit, the soul and mo- 
 tive power of that amazing concentration and record of 
 human conquest and progress, whose prodigious brain 
 and will has reared 
 
 "This dome of thought, this palace of the soul," 
 
 and whose formidable understanding and inevitable vis- 
 age fronts you in Marochetti's marble as you enter a 
 head of the genuine old Roman build, an unmistakable 
 rerum dominus. 
 
 The letter now printed at page 121 was written two 
 months later than th'e one quoted at page 47, and on the 
 same subject. 
 
 I like this letter exceedingly, every word of it, and 
 wish I could ask the delightful and omniscient Notes 
 and Queries who " Tom Bagnall " was, and what is the 
 joke of " the thrushes and fieldfares," and the " hey 
 trony nony." The solemn and prolonged, but genial 
 banter about " t' other condition " is very pleasant and 
 characteristic ; the desipience of such a man as John 
 Locke is never out of place, and is as sweet to listen to 
 now as it could have been to his thoughtful and affec- 
 tionate self to indulge in, a hundred and eighty years, 
 and more ago.
 
 38 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the same MS. volume in which I found this letter 
 is a case-book of Locke's, in his own neat hand, written 
 in Latin (often slovenly and doggish enough), and which 
 shows, if there were any further need, that he was in 
 active practice in 1667. The title in the Museum vol- 
 ume is " Original Medical Papers by John Locke, pre- 
 sented by Wm. Seward, Esq. ; " and its contents are 
 
 1. Hydrops. 
 
 2. Rheumatismus. 
 
 3. Hydrops. 
 
 4. Febris luflammatoria. 
 
 To us now it seems curious to think of the author of 
 the Essay on Human Understanding recording all the 
 aches and doses and minute miseries of an ancilla culm- 
 aria virgo, and to find that after a long and -anxious case 
 he was turned off, when, as he says, his impatient pa- 
 tient olio advocato medico erumpsit (!) 
 
 I cannot help reminding my young friends of the 
 value of his posthumous little book on the Conduct of 
 the Understanding. I am glad to see that Bell and 
 Daldy have published this precious legacy to the youth 
 of England for the first time, (!) introduced and edited 
 by Mr. Bolton Corney : it is a book every father should 
 give his son. 
 
 There is interesting matter in this letter besides its 
 immediate subjects ; and some things, I rather think, un- 
 known before of Sydenham's college life. It is the only 
 bit of English by its author, except a letter to the Hon- 
 orable Robert Boyle, quoted in Latham's Life. 
 
 23 RUTLAND STREET, October 13, 1859.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 "Us n'etoient pas Savans, mais Us etoient Sages." 
 
 " PHILOSOPHIA dinditur in SCIENTIAM et HABITUM 
 unam illam qui didicit, et favenda et vitanda prcecepit, nondum 
 SAPIENS est, nisi in ea qua didicit, animus ejus transfiguratus est."
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 studies of Metaphysics and Medicine have 
 more in common than may perhaps at first 
 sight appear. These two sciences, as learnt, 
 taught, and practised by the two admirable men we are 
 about to speak of, were ill the main not ends in them- 
 selves, but means. The one, as Locke pursued it, is as 
 truly a search after truth and matter of fact, as the 
 other ; and neither Metaphysics nor Medicine is worth 
 a rational man's while, if they do not issue certainly and 
 speedily in helping us to keep and to make our minds 
 and our bodies whole, quick, and strong. Soundness of 
 mind, the just use of reason what Arnauld finely calls 
 droiture de I'dme and the cultivation for good of our 
 entire thinking nature, our common human understand- 
 ing, is as truly the one great end of the Philosophy of 
 Mind, as the full exercise of our bodily functions, and 
 their recovery and relief, when deranged or impaired, is 
 of the Science of Medicine, the Philosophy of Heal- 
 ing ; and no man taught the world to better purpose 
 than did John Locke, that Mental science, like every 
 other, is founded upon fact upon objective realities, 
 upon an induction of particulars, and is in this sense as 
 much a matter of proof as is carpentry, or the doctrine 
 of projectiles. The Essay on Human Understanding 
 contains a larger quantity of facts about our minds, a 
 greater amount of what everybody knows to be true,
 
 42 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 than any other book of the same nature. The reason- 
 ings may be now and then erroneous and imperfect, but 
 the ascertained truths remain, and may be operated upon 
 by all after-comers. 
 
 John Locke and Thomas Sydenham the one the 
 founder of our analytical philosophy of mind, ami the 
 other of our practical medicine were not only great 
 personal friends, but were of essential use to each other 
 in their respective departments ; and we may safely 
 affirm, that for much in the Essay on Human Under- 
 standing we are indebted to its author's intimacy with 
 Sydenham, " one of the master builders at this time in 
 the commonwealth of learning," as Locke calls him, in 
 company with " Boyle, Huygens, and the incomparable 
 Mr. Newton." And Sydenham, it is well known, in his 
 dedicatory letter to their common friend Dr. Mapletoft, 
 prefixed to the third edition of his Observations Med- 
 icce, expresses his obligation to Locke in these words : 
 " Nosti prceterea, quam huic meae methodo suffragantem 
 habeam, qui earn intimius per ornnia perspexerat, utrique 
 nostrum conjunctissimum Domimim Johannem Lock ; 
 quo quidem viro, sive ingenio judicioque acri et suh- 
 acto, sive etiam antiquis (hoc est optimis) moribus, vix 
 superiorem quenquam inter eos qui nunc sunt homines 
 repertum iri confido, paucissimos certe pares." Refer- 
 ring to this passage, when noticing the early training of 
 this ingenium judiciumque acre et subactum, Dugald 
 Stewart says, with great truth, " Xo science could have 
 been chosen, more happily calculated than Medicine, to 
 prepare such a mind for the prosecution of those spec- 
 ulations which have immortalized his name ; the com- 
 plicated and fugitive and often equivocal phenomena 
 of disease requiring in the observer a far greater pro-
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 43 
 
 portion of discriminating sagacity than those of Physics, 
 strictly so called ; resembling, in this respect much more 
 nearly, the phenomena about which Metaphysics, Ethics, 
 and Politics are conversant." And he shrewdly adds, 
 " I have said that the study of Medicine forms one of 
 the best preparations for the study of Mind, to such an 
 understanding as Locke's. To an understanding less 
 comprehensive, and less cultivated by a liberal educa- 
 tion, the effect of this study is like to be similar to what 
 we may have in the works of Hartley, Darwin, and 
 Cabanis ; to all of whom we may more or less apply the 
 sarcasm of Cicero on Aristoxenus the musician, who at- 
 tempted to explain the nature of the soul by comparing 
 it to a harmony ; Hie ab artificio suo non recessit." 
 
 The observational and only genuine study of mind 
 not the mere reading of metaphysical books, and know- 
 ing the endless theories of mind, but the true study of 
 its phenomena has always seemed to us (speaking 
 gud medici) one of the most important, as it certainly is 
 the most studiously neglected, of the accessary disci- 
 plines of the student of medicine. 
 
 Hartley, Mackintosh, and Brown were physicians ; 
 and we know that medicine was a favorite subject with 
 Socrates, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Berkeley, and Sir 
 William Hamilton. We wish our young doctors kept 
 more of the company of these and suchlike men, and 
 knew a little more of the laws of thought, the nature 
 and rules of evidence, the general procedure of their 
 own minds in the search after the proof and the applica- 
 tion of what is true, than we fear they generally do. 1 
 
 1 Pinel states, with much precision, the necessity there is for physi 
 cians to make the mind of man, as \vell as his body, their especial study. 
 "L'histoire de 1'entendement humain, pourroit-elle etre ignoree par le
 
 44 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 They might do so without knowing less of their Aus- 
 cultation, Histology, and other good things, and with 
 knowing them to better purpose. "We wonder, for in- 
 stance, how many of the century of graduates sent forth 
 from our famous University every year armed with 
 microscope, stethoscope, uroscope, pleximeter, etc., and 
 omniscient of rules and rhonchi sibilous and sonorous ; 
 crepitations moist and dry ; bruits de rape, de scie, et de 
 soufflet ; blood plasmata, cytoblasts and nucleated cells, 
 and great in the infinitely little, we wonder how 
 many of these eager and accomplished youths could 
 "unsphere the spirit of Plato," or are able to read with 
 moderate relish and understanding one of the Tusculan 
 Disputations, or have so much as even heard of Butler's 
 Three Sermons on Human Nature, Berkeley's Minute 
 Philosopher, or of a posthumous Essay on the Conduct 
 of the Understanding? of which Mr. Hallam says, " I 
 cannot think any parent or instructor justified in neglect- 
 ing to put this little treatise in the hands of a boy about 
 the time that the reasoning faculties become developed," 
 and whose admirable author we shall now endeavor to 
 prove to have been much more one of their own guild 
 than is generally supposed. 
 
 In coming to this conclusion, we have been mainly in- 
 debted to the classical, eloquent, and conclusive tract by 
 
 me'decin, qui a non-seulement a de"crire les ve'sanies ou maladies mo- 
 rales, et a indiquer toutes leurs nuances, mais encore, qui a besoin de 
 porter la logique la plus severe pour eViter de donner de la rdalite' a 
 de terraes abstraits, pour proce'der avec sagesse des ide"es simples a de3 
 ide'es complexes, et qui a sans cesse sous ses yeux des cents oil le d&- 
 faut de s'entendre, la seduction de 1'esprit de systeme, et 1'abus des 
 expressions vagues et inde'termine'es ont amene" de milliers des volumes 
 et des disputes interminables ? " Methodes d'etudier en Medecine. 
 
 1 There is a handsome reprint of this " pith of sense " put forth the 
 other day by Bell & Daldy.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 45 
 
 Lord Grenville, 1 entitled, Oxford' and Locke; to Lord 
 King's Life of his great kinsman; to Wood's Athence and 
 Fasti Oxonienses ; to the letters from Locke to Drs. 
 Mapletoft, Molyneux, Sir Hans Sloane, and Boyle, pub- 
 lished in the collected edition of his works ; to Ward's 
 Lives of the Gresham Professors ; and to a very curious 
 collection of letters of Locke, Algernon Sidney, the 
 second Lord Shaftesbary, and others, edited and pri- 
 vately printed by Dr. Thomas Forster ; and to a Medi- 
 cal Commonplace Book, and many very interesting let- 
 ters on medical subjects, by his great kinsman, in the 
 possession of the Earl of Lovelace, and to which, by his 
 Lordship's kindness, we have had access ; some of the 
 letters are to Fletcher of Saltoun, on the health of his 
 brother's wife, and, for unincumbered good sense, ra- 
 tional trust in nature's vis medicatrix, and wholesome 
 fear of polypharmacy and the nimia diligentia of his 
 time, might have been written by Dr. Combe or Sir 
 Tames Clark. 
 
 Le Clerc, in his Eloge upon Locke in the Bibliotheque 
 Choisie (and in this he has been followed by all subse- 
 quent biographers), states, that when a student at Christ 
 Church, Oxford, he devoted himself with great earnest- 
 ness to the study of Medicine, but that he never prac- 
 tised it as his profession, his chief object having been to 
 qualify himself to act as his own physician, on account 
 of his general feebleness of health, and tendency to con- 
 sumption. To show the incorrectness of this statement, 
 we give the following short notice of his medical studies 
 and practice ; it is necessarily slight, but justifies, we 
 think, our assertion in regard to him as a practitioner in 
 medicine. 
 
 i See Note A.
 
 46 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 LOCKE was born in 1632 at Wrington, Somersetshire, 
 on the 29th of August, the anniversary, as Dr. Forster 
 takes care to let us know, of the Decollation of St. 
 John the Baptist eight years after Sydenham, and ten 
 before Newton. He left Westminster School in 1651, 
 and entered Christ Church, distinguishing himself chiefly 
 in the departments of medicine and general physics, and 
 greatly enamored of the brilliant and then new philos- 
 ophy of Descartes. 
 
 In connection with Locke's university studies, An- 
 thony Wood, in his autobiography, has the following cu- 
 rious passage : " I began a course of chemistry under 
 the noted chemist and rosicrucian Peter Sthael of Stras- 
 burg, a strict Lutheran, and a great hater of women. 
 The club consisted of ten, whereof were Frank Turner, 
 now Bishop of Ely, Benjamin Woodroof, now Canon of 
 Christ Church, and John Locke of the same house, now 
 a noted writer. This same John Locke was a man of a 
 turbulent spirit, clamorous, and never contented ; while 
 the rest of our club took notes from the mouth of their 
 master, who sat at the upper end of a long table, the 
 said Locke scorned to do this, but was for ever prating 
 and troublesome." This misogynistical rosicrucian was 
 brought over to Oxford by Boyle, and had among his pu- 
 pils Sir Christoper Wren, Dr. Wallis, and Sir Thomas 
 Millington. The fees were three pounds, one-half paid 
 in advance. 
 
 Locke continued through life greatly addicted to med- 
 ical and chemical researches. He kept the first regular 
 journal of the weather, and published it from time to 
 time in the Philosophical Transactions, and in Boyle's 
 History of the Air. He used in his observations a ba- 
 rometer, a thermometer, and a hygrometer. His letters
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 47 
 
 to Boyle are full of experiments and speculations about 
 chemistry and medicine ; and in a journal kept by him 
 when travelling in France is this remarkable entry : 
 " M. Toinard produced a large bottle of muscat ; it was 
 clear when he set it on the table, but when the stopper 
 was drawn, a multitude of little bubbles arose. It comes 
 from this, that the included air had liberty to expand it- 
 self : query, whether this be air new generated. Take 
 a bottle of fermenting liquor, and tie a bladder over its 
 mouth, how much new air will this produce, and has this 
 the quality of common air ?" "We need hardly add, that 
 about a hundred years after this Dr. Black answered 
 this capital query, and in doing sp, transformed the 
 whole face of chemistry. 
 
 We now find that, in contradiction to the generally 
 received account, " sour " Anthony Wood, who was an 
 Oxford man and living on the spot, says in his spiteful 
 way, " Mr. Locke, after having gone through the usual 
 courses preparatory to practice, entered upon the physic 
 line and got some business at Oxford." Nothing can be 
 more explicit than this, and more directly opposed to Le 
 Clerc's account of his friend's early life, which, it may be 
 remembered, was chiefly derived from notes furnished 
 by the second Lord Shaftesbury, whose information 
 must necessarily have been at second or third hand. In 
 1GG6, Lord Ashley, afterwards the first Lord Shaftes- 
 bury, came to Oxford to drink the water of Astrop ; he 
 was suffering from an abscess in his chest, the conse- 
 quence of a fall from his horse. Dr. Thomas, his lord- 
 ship's attendant, happening to be called out of town, 
 sent his friend Locke, then practising there, who exam- 
 ined into his complaints, and advised the abscess to be 
 opened ; this was done, and, as the story goes, his lord
 
 48 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 ship's life was saved. From this circumstance took its 
 origin the well-known friendship of these two famous 
 men. That their connection at first was chiefly that of 
 patient and doctor, is plain from the expression, " lie, 
 the Earl, would not suffer him to practise medicine out 
 of his house, except among some of his particular 
 friends," implying that he was practising when he took 
 him. 
 
 In 1668, Locke, then in his thirty-sixth year, accom- 
 panied the Earl and Countess of Northumberland to the 
 Continent, as their physician. The Earl died on his 
 journey to Rome, leaving Locke with the Countess in 
 Paris. When there, he attended her during a violent 
 attack of what seems to have been tic-douloureux, an in- 
 teresting account of which, and of the treatment he 
 adopted, was presented by the late Lord King to the 
 London College of Physicians and read before them 
 in 1829. By the great kindness of the late Dr. Paris, 
 President of the College, we had access to a copy of this 
 medical and literary curiosity, which, besides its own 
 value as a plain, clear statement of the case, and as an 
 example of simple skilful treatment, is the best of all 
 proofs that at that time Locke was a regular physician. 
 We cannot give it higher praise, or indicate more signif- 
 icantly its wonderful superiority to the cases to be found 
 in medical authors of the same date, than by saying that 
 in expression, in description, in diagnosis, and in treat- 
 ment, it differs very little from what we have in our own 
 best works. 
 
 After the Earl's death, Locke returned to England, 
 and seems to have lived partly at Exeter House with 
 Lord Shaftesbury, and partly at Oxford. It was in 
 1670, at the latter place, that he sketched the first out-
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 49 
 
 line of bis immortal Essay, the origin of which he has 
 so modestly recorded in his Epistle to the Reader. Dr. 
 Thomas, and most probably Dr. Sydenham, were among 
 the " live or six friends meeting at my chamber," who 
 started the idea of that work, " which has done more 
 than any other single work to rectify prejudice, to un- 
 dermine established errors, to diffuse a just mode of 
 thinking, to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and yet 
 to contain it within the boundaries nature has set to the 
 human faculties. If Bacon first discovered the rules by 
 whicli knowledge is to be advanced, Locke has most 
 contributed by precept and example to make mankind at 
 large observe them, and has thus led to that general dif- 
 fusion of a healthful and vigorous understanding, which 
 is at once the greatest of all improvements, and the 
 instrument by which all other improvements must be 
 accomplished." 
 
 About this time, Locke seems to have been made a 
 Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1674, he took the de- 
 gree of Bachelor of Medicine ; he "never was Doctor of 
 Medicine, though he generally passed among his friends 
 as Dr. Locke. 
 
 In 1G75, he went abroad for his health, and appar- 
 ently, also, to pursue his medical studies. He remained 
 for some time at Montpellier, then the most famous of 
 the schools of medicine. He attended the lectures of 
 the celebrated Barbeyrac, to whose teaching Sydenham 
 is understood to have been so much indebted. When 
 there, and during his residence abroad, he kept a diary, 
 large extracts from which are for the first time given by 
 Lord King. 1 The following is his account of -the an- 
 
 1 Lord King refers to numerous passages in Locke's Diaries exclu- 
 sively devoted to medical subjects, which lie has refrained from pub- 
 4
 
 50 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 nual " capping " at Montpellier. " The manner of mak- 
 ing a Doctor of Physic is this : 1st, a procession in 
 scarlet robes and black caps the professor took his 
 seat and after a company of fiddlers had played a cer- 
 tain time, he made them a sign to hold, that he might 
 have an opportunity to entertain the company, which he 
 did in a speech against innovations the musicians then 
 took their turn. The Inceptor or candidate then began 
 his speech, wherein I found little edification, being 
 chiefly complimentary to the chancellor and professors, 
 who were present. The Doctor then put on his head 
 the cap that had marched in on the beadle's staff, in sign 
 of his doctorship put a ring upon his finger girt 
 himself about the loins with a gold chain made him 
 sit down beside him that having taken pains he might 
 now take ease, and kissed and embraced him in token of 
 the friendship which ought to be amongst them." 
 
 From Montpellier he went to Paris, and was a dili- 
 gent student of anatomy under Dr. Guenelon, with 
 whom he was afterwards so intimate, when living in 
 exile at Amsterdam. 
 
 In June 1G77, when in Paris, he wrote the following 
 jocular letter to his friend Dr. Mapletoft, then physic 
 professor at Gresham College. This letter, which is not 
 noticed in any life of Locke that we have seen, is thus 
 introduced by Dr. Ward: "Dr. Mapletoft did not 
 
 lishing, as unlikely to interest the general public ; and Dr. Forster 
 gives us to understand that he has in his possession "some ludicrous, 
 sarcastic, and truly witty letters to his friend Furley on medicine, his 
 original profession ; " but which letters the Doctor declines Riving to 
 the public "in these days of absurd refinement." We would gladly 
 forswear our refinement to have a sight of them ; anything that Locke 
 considered worth the writing down about anything is likely to be 
 worth the reading.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. i>l 
 
 sontinue long at Gresliam, and yet longer than he seenis 
 to have designed, by a letter to him, written by the fa- 
 mous Mr. John Locke, dated from Paris, 22d June 1677, 
 in which is this passage : ' If either absence (which 
 sometimes increases our desires) or love (which we see 
 every day produces strange effects in the world) have 
 softened you, or disposed you towards a liking for any 
 of our fine new things, 't is but saying so, and I am ready 
 to furnish you, and should be sorry not to be employed ; 
 I mention love, for you know I have a particular inter- 
 est of my own in it. When you look that way, nobody 
 will be readier, as you may guess, to throw an old shoe 
 after you, much for your own sake, and a little for a 
 friend of yours. But were I to advise, perhaps I should 
 say that the lodgings at Gresham College were a quiet 
 and comfortable habitation.' By this passage," con- 
 tinues Ward, "it seems probable that Dr. Mapleteft had 
 then some views to marriage, and that Dr. Luoke was 
 desirous, should it so fall out, to succeed him. But 
 neither of these events happened at the time, for the 
 Dr. held his professorship till the 10th October 1G79, and, 
 in November following, married Rebecca, the daughtei 
 of Mr Lucy Knightley of Hackney, a Hamburg mer- 
 chant." And we know that on the 10th of May that 
 same year, Locke was sent for from Paris by Lord 
 Shaftesbury, when his Lordship was made President of 
 Sir William Temple's Council, half a year after which 
 they were both exiles in Holland. As we have already 
 said, there is something very characteristic in this jocu- 
 lar, paivky, affectionate letter. 
 
 There can be little doubt from this, that so late as 
 1677, when he was forty-five years of age, Locke was 
 able and willing to undertake the formal teaching of 
 medicine.
 
 52 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 It would not be easy to say how much mankind would 
 have at once lost and gained how much the philosophy 
 of mind would have been hindered, and how much that 
 of medicine would have been advanced, had John Locke's 
 lungs been as sound as his understanding, and h;ul he 
 "stuck to the physic line," or had his friend Dr. Maple- 
 toft " looked that way " a little earlier, and made Re- 
 becca Knightley his wife two years sooner, or had Lord 
 Shaftesbury missed the royal reconcilement and his half- 
 year's presidency. 
 
 Medicine would assuredly have gained something it 
 still lacks, and now perhaps more than ever, had that 
 " friend of yours," having thrown the old shoe with due 
 solemnity and precision after the happy couple, much 
 for their sakes and a little for his own, settled down in 
 that quiet, comfortable, baccalaurian habitation, over- 
 against the entrance into Bishopsgate Street ; and had 
 thenceforward, in the prime of life, directed the full 
 vigor of that liberal, enlightened, sound, humane, and 
 practical understanding, to the exposition of what Lord 
 Grenville so justly calls " the large and difficult" sub- 
 ject of medicine. "What an amount of gain to rational 
 and effective medicine what demolition of venerable 
 and mischievous error what fearless innovations 
 what exposition of immediately useful truth what an 
 example for all future laborers in that vast and perilous 
 field, of the best method of attaining the best ends, might 
 not have been expected from him of whom it was truly 
 said that " he knew something of everything that could 
 be useful to mankind ! " It is no wonder then, that, 
 looking from the side of medicine, we grudge the loss 
 of the Locke " Physic Lectures," and wish that we 
 might, without fable, imagine ourselves in that quaint,
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 53 
 
 Bteep-roofed quadrangle, with its fifteen trees, and its 
 diagonal walks across the green court ; and at eight 
 o'clock, when the morning sun was falling on the long 
 legs and antennae of good Sir Thomas's gilded grasshop- 
 pers, and the mighty hum of awakening London was 
 beginning to rise, might figure to ourselves the great 
 philosopher stepping briskly through the gate into his 
 . ecture-room his handsome, serious face, set " in his 
 nood, according to his degree in the university, as was 
 thought meet for more order and comeliness sake," and 
 there, twice every week in the term, deliver the " sol- 
 emn Physic Lecture," in the Latin tongue, in dutiful ac- 
 cordance with the " agreement, tripartite, between the 
 mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London the war- 
 dens and commonalty of the mystery of mercers, and the 
 Lecturers in Gresham House ; " and again, six hours 
 later, read the same " solemn lecture," we would fancy 
 with more of relish and spirit, in the " English tongue," 
 " forasmuch," so the worthy Founder's will goes, " as 
 the greater part of the auditory is like to be of such cit- 
 izens and others as have small knowledge, or none at 
 all, of the Latin tongue, and for that every man, for his 
 health's sake, will desire to have some knowledge of the 
 art of physic." 
 
 "We have good evidence, from the general bent and 
 spirit of Locke's mind, and from occasional passages in 
 his letters, especially those to Dr. Molyneux, that he 
 was fully aware of the condition of medicine at that 
 time, and of the only way by which it could be im- 
 proved. "Writing to Dr. Molyneux, he says ; " I per- 
 fectly agree with you concerning general theories the 
 curse of the time, and destructive not less of life than of 
 science they are for the most part but a sort of wak-
 
 54 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 ing dream, with which, when men have warmed theii 
 heads, they pass into unquestionable truths. This is be- 
 ginning at the wrong end, men laying the foundation in 
 their own 'fancies, and then suiting the phenomena of 
 diseases, and the cure of them, to these fancies. I won- 
 der, after the pattern Dr. Sydenham has set of a better 
 way, men should return again to this romance-way of 
 physic. But I see it is more easy and more natural for 
 men to build castles in the air of their own than to survey 
 well those that are on the ground. Nicely to observe the 
 history of diseases in all their changes and circumstances 
 is a work of time, accurateness, attention, and judgment, 
 and wherein if men, through prepossession or oscitancy, 
 mistake, they may be convinced of their error by unerr- 
 ing nature and matter of fact. What we know of the 
 works of nature, especially in the constitution of health 
 and the operations of our own bodies, is only by the sen- 
 sible effects, but not by any certainty ice can have, of the 
 tools she uses, or the ways she works by." 
 
 Exact, patient, honest, " nice " observation, is neither 
 easy nor common ; as Buffon says : " II y a une espece 
 de force de genie, et de courage d'esprit, a pouvoir en- 
 visager sans s'e'tonner, la Nature dans la multitude in- 
 nombrable de ses productions, et a se croire capable de 
 les comprendre et de les comparer ; il y a une espece de 
 gout, a les aimer, plus grand que le gout qui n'a pour 
 but, que des objets particuliers, et 1'un peut dire, que 
 . amour et 1'etude de la Nature, suppose dans 1'esprit 
 deux qualites qui paroissent opposees, les grandes vues 
 d ? un genie ardent, qui embrasse tout d'un coup-d'ceil, et 
 les petites attentions d'un instinct laborieux, que ne 
 s'attache qu'a un seul point." 
 
 Gaubius calls it " masculum illud observandi studium
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 55 
 
 veteribus tantopere excultum ; " and Dr. Samuel Brown, 
 heu nimium brevis cevi decus et desiderium ! thus en- 
 forces the same truth : " Few people are aware of the 
 difficulty of the art of simple observation ; to observe 
 properly in the simplest of the physical sciences requires 
 a long and severe training. No one knows this so feel- 
 ngly as the great discoverer. Faraday once said that 
 Jb always doubts his own observations. Mitscherlich 
 said it required fourteen years to discover and establish 
 a single new fact in chemistry. An enthusiastic student 
 one day betook himself to Cuvier with a new muscle he 
 supposed he had discovered. The master bade his 
 scholar return to him with the same discovery in six 
 months ! " 
 
 But we must draw this notice of Locke in his char- 
 acter of Doctor to a close. In the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions for 1697, there is an account by him of an odd 
 case of hypertrophied nails, which he had seen at La 
 Charite when in Paris, and he gives pictures of the 
 hornlike excrescences, one of them upwards of four 
 inches long. The second Lord Shaftesbury, who was 
 Locke's pupil, and for whom he chose a wife, id a letter 
 to Furley, who seems to have been suffering from a re- 
 lapse of intermittent fever, explains, with great distinct- 
 ness and good sense, " Dr. Locke's and all our ingenious 
 and able doctors' method " of treating this disease with 
 the Peruvian bark ; adding, " I am satisfied, that of all 
 medicines, if it be good of its kind, and properly given, 
 it is the most innocent and effectual, whatever bugbear 
 the world makes of it, especially the tribe of inferior 
 physicians, from whom it cuts off so much business and 
 gain." We now conclude our notices of Locke's medi- 
 cal history which, however imperfect, seem to us to
 
 56 LOCKE AND STDEXHAM. 
 
 warrant our original assertion with the following 
 weighty sentence taken from the " Fragment on Study " 
 given hy Lord King, and which was written when Locke 
 was at his studies at Oxford. It accords curiously with 
 what we have already quoted from Dugald Stewart : 
 " Physic, polity, and prudence are not capable of dem- 
 onstration, but a man is principally helped in them, 
 1, By the history of matter of fact ; and, 2, By a sagac- 
 ity of inquiring into probable causes, and finding out an 
 analogy in their operations and effects. Whether a cer- 
 tain course in public or private affairs will succeed well 
 whether rhubarb will purge, or quinquina cure an 
 ague, can be known only by experience." 1 
 
 SYDENHAM, the prince of practical physicians, whose 
 character is as beautiful and as genuinely English as his 
 name, did for his art what Locke did for the philosophy 
 of mind he made it, in the main, observational ; he 
 made knowledge a means, not an end. It would not be 
 easy to over-estimate our obligations as a nation to these 
 two men, in regard to all that is involved in the promo- 
 
 1 The all-accomplished, and, in the old sense, "the admirable" Dr. 
 Thomas Young, puts this very powerfully in the preface to his Intro- 
 duction to Medical Literature. "There is, in fact, no study more 
 lifficult than that of physic ; it exceeds, as a science, the comprehen- 
 sion of the human mind; and those who blunder onwards, without at- 
 empting to understand what they see, are often nearly on a level with 
 Ihose who depend too much upon imperfect generalizations." " Some 
 departments of knowledge defy all attempts to subject them to any 
 didactic method, and require the exercise of a peculiar address, a judg- 
 ment, or a taste, which can only be formed by indirect means. It 
 appears that physic is one of those departments in which there is 
 frequent necessity for the exercise of an incommunicable faculty oj 
 'udgifient, and a sagacity which may be called transcendental, as ex* 
 tending beyond the simple combination of all that can be taught b$ 
 precept "
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 57 
 
 tion of health of body and soundness of mind. They 
 were among the first in their respective regions to show 
 their faith in the inductive method, by their works. 
 They both professed to be more of guides than critics, 
 and were the interpreters and servants of Nature, not 
 her diviners and tormentors. They pointed out a way, 
 and themselves walked in it ; they taught a method and 
 used it, rather than announced a system or a discovery ; 
 they collected and arranged their visa before settling 
 their cogitata a mean-spirited proceeding, doubtless, 
 in the eyes of the prevailing dealers in hypotheses, being 
 in reality the exact reverse of their philosophy. How 
 curious, how humbling, to think that it was not till this 
 time, that men in search of truth were brought to see 
 that " it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man's 
 mind, but the remote standing or placing thereof, that 
 breedeth mazes and incomprehensions ; for as the sense 
 afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so is it 
 of the understanding, the remedy whereof is not to quicken 
 or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object." 
 Well might this greatest of Lord Chancellors now even 
 say, as he does in the context (he is treating of medi- 
 cine) " Medicine is a science which hath been more 
 professed than labored, more labored than advanced, 
 the labor being in my judgment more in a circle than 
 in progression : I find much iteration but small addi 
 tion ; " and he was right in laying much of this evil con- 
 dition to the discontinuance of " the ancient and serious 
 diligence of Hippocrates." This serious diligence, this 
 dK/H/3eia or nicety of observation by which the " divine, 
 old man of Cos " achieved so much, was Sy denham's 
 master-principle in practice and in speculation. He pro- 
 claimed it anew, and displayed in his own case its certain 
 and inestimable fruits.
 
 58 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 It appears to us one of the most interesting, as it is 
 certainly one of the most difficult and neglected depart- 
 ments of medical literature, to endeavor to trace the 
 progress of medicine as a practical art, with its rules 
 and instruments, as distinguished from its consolidation 
 into a systematic science with its doctrines and laws, 
 and to make out how far these two, which conjoined 
 form the philosophy of the subject, have or have not 
 harmonized with, and been helpful to each other, at dif- 
 ferent periods of their histories. Much might be done 
 to make such an inquiry instructive and attractive, by 
 marking out the history of medicine into several great 
 epochs, and taking, as representative of each, some one 
 distinguished artsman or practitioner, as well as teacher 
 or discoverer. He might have Hippocrates and his 
 epoch, Sydenham and his, John Hunter, Pinel. Laennec 
 and theirs. These great men differed certainly widely 
 enough in character and in circumstances, but agreed all 
 in this, their possessing in large measure, and of rare 
 quality, that native sagacity, that power of keen, serious, 
 choice, patient, continuous, honest observation, which is 
 at once a gift and a habit; that instinct for seeking and 
 finding, which Bacon calls " experientia literala, saga- 
 citas polius et odoratio qucedam venatica, quam scien- 
 tia;" that general strength and soundness of under- 
 standing, and that knack of being able to apply their 
 knowledge, instantly and aright, in practice, which must 
 ever constitute the cardinal virtues of a great physician, 
 the very pith and marrow of his worth. 
 
 Of the two first of these famous men, we fear there 
 survives in the profession little more than the names ; 
 and we receive from them, and are made wiser and bet- 
 ter by inheriting, their treasures of honest and exquisite
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 59 
 
 observation, of judicious experience, without, we fear, 
 knowing or caring much from whom it has come. " One 
 man soweth, and another reapeth." The young forget 
 the old, the children their fathers ; and we are all too 
 apt to reverse the saying of the wise king, " I praised 
 the dead that are already dead, more than the living that 
 are yet alive." 
 
 As we are not sufficiently conscious of, so we assur- 
 edly are not adequately grateful for, that accumulated 
 volume of knowledge, that body of practical truth, which 
 comes down as a heritage to each one of us, from six 
 thousand years of human endeavor ; and which, like a 
 mighty river, is moving forever onwards widening, 
 deepening, strengthening, as it goes ; for the right ad- 
 ministration and use of whose untold energies and 
 wealth, we, to whom it has thus far descended, are re- 
 sponsible to Him from whom it comes, and to whom it 
 is hastening responsible to an extent we are too apt 
 to forget, or to underrate. We should not content our- 
 selves with sailing victoriously down the stream, or with 
 considering our portion of it merely ; we should go up 
 the country oftener than we do, and see where the 
 mighty feeders come in, and learn and not forget their 
 names, and note how much more of volume, of momen- 
 tum, and power, the stream has after they have fallen 
 'n. 
 
 It is the lot of the successful medical practitioner, who 
 is more occupied with discerning diseases and curing 
 them, than with discoursing about their essence, and ar- 
 ranging them into systems, who observes and reflects in 
 order to act rather than to speak, it is the lot of such 
 \nen to be invaluable when alive, and to be forgotten 
 soon after they are dead ; and this not altogether or
 
 60 LOCKE AND SYDENHA5I. 
 
 chiefly from any special ingratitude or injustice on the 
 part of mankind, but from the very nature of the case. 
 Much that made such a man what the community to 
 their highest profit found him to be, dies, must die, with 
 him. His inborn gifts, and much of what was most val- 
 uable in his experience, were necessarily incommunica- 
 ble to others, this depending somewhat on his forgetting 
 the process by which, in particular cases, he made up 
 his mind, and its minute successive steps, from his 
 eagerness to possess and put in action the result, arid 
 likewise from his being confident in the general sound- 
 ness of his method, and caring little about formally re- 
 cording to himself his transient mental conditions, much 
 less announcing them articulately to others ; but mainly, 
 we believe, because no man can explain directly to an- 
 other man how he does any one practical thing, the do- 
 ing of which he himself has accomplished, not at once, 
 or by imitation, or by teaching, but by repeated personal 
 trials, by missing much, before ultimately hitting. 
 
 You may be able to expound excellently to your son 
 the doctrines of gunnery, or read him a course of lec- 
 tures upon the principles of horsemanship, but you can- 
 not transfer to him your own knack as a dead-shot, or 
 make him keep his seat over a rasping fence. He must 
 take pains to win these for himself, as you have done 
 before him. Thus it is that much of the best of a man 
 like Sydenham, dies with him. 
 
 It is very different with those who frequent the field 
 of scientific discovery. Here matters are reversed. No 
 man, for instance, in teaching anatomy or physiology, 
 when he comes to enounce each new subordinate discov- 
 ery, can fail to unfold and to enhance the ever-increas- 
 ing renown of that keen UacJc-a-vised little man, with his
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 61 
 
 piercing eye, " small and dark, and so full of spirit ; " 
 his compact, broad forehead, his self-contained, peremp- 
 tory air, his dagger at his side, and his fingers playing 
 with its hilt, to whom we owe the little book, JDe motu 
 cordis et sanguim's circulatione. This primary, capital 
 discovery, which no succeeding one can ever supersede 
 or obscure, he could leave consummate to mankind ; but 
 he could not so leave the secret of his making it ; he 
 could not transmit that combination of original genius, 
 invention, exactness, perseverance, and judgment, which 
 enabled him, and can alone enable any man, to make 
 such a permanent addition to the fund of scientific truth. 
 But what fitted Harvey for that which he achieved, 
 greatly unfitted him for such excellence in practice as 
 Sydenham attained. He belonged to the science more 
 than to the art. His friend Aubrey says of him, that 
 " though all his profession would allow him to be an ex- 
 cellent anatomist, I have never heard of any who ad- 
 mired his therapeutic way." A mind of his substance 
 and mettle, speculative and arbitrary, passing rapidly 
 and passionately from the particular to the general, from 
 multiformity to unity, with, moreover, a fiery temper 
 and an extemporaneous dagger as its sting, was not 
 likely to take kindly to the details of practice, or make 
 a very useful or desirable family doctor. Sydenham, 
 again, though his works everywhere manifest that he 
 was gifted with ample capacity and keen relish for ab- 
 stract truth, moved habitually and by preference in the 
 lower, but at the time the usefuller sphere of every- day 
 practice, speculating chiefly in order to act, reducing his 
 generalizations back to particulars, so as to answer some 
 immediate instance, the result of which was the sig- 
 vallest success of " his therapeutic way." We have had
 
 32 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 in our own day two similar examples of the man of sci- 
 ence and the man of art ; the one, Sir Charles Bell 
 like Harvey, the explorer, the discoverer, the man of 
 genius and science, of principles and laws, having the 
 royal gifts of invention and eloquence was not equally 
 endowed with those homelier, but in their degree not 
 less rare qualities, which made Dr. Abercrombie, our 
 Scottish Sydenham, what he was, as a master in the di- 
 agnosis and treatment of disease. The one pursued his 
 profession as a science, to be taught, to be transmitted 
 in its entireness the other as an art to be applied. 
 The one was, in the old phrase, luciferons ; the other 
 frugiferous. 
 
 One great object we have in now bringing forward 
 the works and character of Sydenham, is to enforce the 
 primary necessity, especially in our day, of attending to 
 medicine as the art of healing, not less than as the 
 science of diseases and drugs. We want at present more _ 
 of the first than of the second. Our age is becoming 
 every day more purely scientific, and is occupied far 
 more with arranging subjects and giving names, and re- 
 membering them, than with understanding and manag- 
 ing objects. There is often more knowledge of words 
 than of things. 
 
 "We have already stated our notion, that to the great 
 body of modern physicians, Sydenham is little more than 
 a name, and that his works, still more than those of his 
 companion Locke, are more spoken of than read. Thi 
 is owing to several causes : partly to their being buried 
 in Latin, which men seem nowadays ashamed to know; 
 partly to much in them being now scientifically obsolete 
 and useless ; partly from their practical value being im- 
 paired by our ignorance of his formulas of cure ; and
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 63 
 
 greatly also, we fear, from what Baglivi calls " an inept 
 derision and neglect of the ancients," which is more prev- 
 alent than seemly. We include ourselves among these ; 
 for until we got Dr. GreenhilPs edition, we had never 
 read seriously and thoroughly these admirable tracts, 
 which were all of an occasional character, and were 
 forced from their author by the importunity of friends, 
 or the envious calumny of enemies, often in the form of 
 familiar letters. 
 
 We had, when at college, picked up like our neigh- 
 bors the current commonplaces about Sydenham ; such 
 as that he went by the name of " the Prince of English 
 physicians ; " that Boerhaave (of whom by the way we 
 knew quite as little, unless it were a certain awful ac- 
 quaintance with his ugly, squab, and gilded visage, which 
 regarded us grimly from above a druggist's door, as we 
 hurried along the Bridges to the University) was wont 
 to take his hat off, whenever he mentioned his name, 
 and to call him " Anglice lumen, Artis Phoebum, veram 
 Hippocratici veri speciem : " that his life was written by 
 Samuel Johnson in the Gentleman's Magazine, and was 
 one of his earliest and worst paid performances : that he 
 was a Whig, and went into the field as a Parliament 
 man. Moreover, that when asked by Sir Richard Black- 
 more what he would advise him for medical reading, he 
 replied, " Head Don Quixote, Sir," an answer as full 
 of sense as wit, and the fitness and wisdom of which it 
 would be not less pleasant than profitable to unfold at 
 length. We had been told also, in a very general way 
 by our teachers, that Sydenham had done some things 
 for his profession, which, considering the dark age in 
 which he worked, were highly to his credit ; that his 
 name was well connected with the history and manage-
 
 64 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 ment of the small-pox ; the nature of epidemics, the con- 
 stitutions of years, dropsies, etc., and that he had re- 
 corded his own sufferings from the gout in a clever and 
 entertaining way. 
 
 All this was true, hut by no means the whole truth. 
 Not only are his observations invaluable to anyone en- 
 gaged in tracing the history of medicine as a practical 
 art, and as an applied science ; in marking in what re- 
 spects it is changed, and in what unchanged ; in how 
 much it is better now than then, and in what little it is 
 not so good. In addition to all this, they are full of val- 
 uable rules for the diagnosis and treatment of disease ; 
 and we can trace to him as their origin, many of our 
 most common and important therapeutic doctrines. They 
 everywhere manifest how thoroughly he practised what 
 he taught, how honestly he used his own "method," 
 that of continued, close, serious observation. But we 
 confess, after all, our chief delight is from the discovery 
 he makes in his works of his personal character the 
 exemplar he furnishes in himself of the four qualities 
 Hippocrates says are indispensable in every good physi- 
 cian learning, sagacity, humanity, probity. This per- 
 sonality gives a constant charm to everything he writes, 
 the warmth of his large, humane, practical nature is felt 
 throughout. 
 
 Above all, we meet with a habitual reference to what 
 ought to be the supreme end of every man's thoughts 
 and energies the two main issues of all his endeavors, 
 the glory of God and the good of men. Human life 
 was to him a sacred, a divine, as well as a curious thing, 
 and he seems to have possessed through life, in rare 
 acuteness, that sense of the value of what was at stake 
 of the perilous material he had to work in, and
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 6& 
 
 gentleness and compassion for his suffering fellow-men, 
 without which no man be his intellect ever so tran 
 scenclent, his learning ever so vast, his industry ever so 
 accurate and inappeasable need hope to be a great 
 physician, much less a virtuous and honest man. This 
 characteristic is very striking. In the midst of the most 
 minute details, and the most purely professional state- 
 ments, he bursts out into some abrupt acknowledgment 
 of "The Supreme Judge," "The true Archiater and 
 Archeus." We may give one among many such in- 
 stances. He closes his observations on The Epidemic 
 Cough and Pleurisy Peripneumony of 1675, with this 
 sudden allusion to the Supreme Being : " Qui post se- 
 quentur morbi, solus novit, Qui novit omnia. And 
 again, after giving his receipt for the preparation of his 
 laudanum liquidum, so much of Spanish wine, of opium, 
 of saffron, of cinnamon, and cloves, he adds, " Profecto 
 non hie mihi tempero, quin gratulabundus animadver 
 tarn, DEUM omnipotentern TTCIVTUV ^.(orijpa fdwv non aliud 
 remedium, quod vel pluribus malis debellandis par sit, 
 vel eadem efficacius extirpet, humano generi in miseria- 
 rum solatium concessisse, quam opiata." 
 
 If we may adapt the simple but sublime saying of Sir 
 Isaac Newton, Sydenham, though diligent beyond most 
 other " children " in gathering his pebbles and shells on 
 the shore of the great deep, and in winning for mankind 
 some things of worth from the vast and formless infinite, 
 was not unconscious of the mighty presence beside which 
 he was at work ; he was not deaf to the strong music of 
 that illimitable sea. He recognized in the midst of the 
 known, a greater, an infinite, a divine unknown ; behind 
 everything certain and distinct, he beheld something 
 shadowy and unsearchable, past all fiudiqg out ; and ho 
 5
 
 66 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 did not, as many men of his class have too often done, 
 and still do, rest in the mere contemplation and recogni- 
 tion of the rt 0tov. This was to him but the shadow of 
 the supreme substance, 6 eos. How unlike to this fer- 
 vor, this reverence and godly fear, is the hard, cool, non- 
 chalant style of many of our modern men of science, 
 each of whom is so intent on his own little pebble, so 
 bent upon finding in it something no one else ever found, 
 so self-involved and self-sufficient, that his eyes and his 
 ears are alike shut to the splendors and the voices 
 the brooding darkness, and the " look that threatens the 
 profane " of the liberal sea, from out whose abyss it 
 has been flung, and 
 
 " Which doth with its eternal motion make 
 A sound like thunder everlastingly." 
 
 This habit of Sydenham's mind is strikingly shown in 
 the first sentence of his Preface to the first edition of 
 his Medical Observations: " Qui medicinae dat operam, 
 haac secum ut ssepe perpendat oportet : Primo, se de 
 segrorum vita ipsius curse commissa, rationem aliquaudo 
 SUPREMO JUDICI redditurum. Deinde quicquid artis 
 aut scientiag Divino beneficio consecutus est, imprimis, 
 ad SUMMI NUMINIS laudem, atque humani generis salu- 
 tem, esse dirigendum : indignum autem esse, ut crelestia 
 ilia dona, vel avaritia?, vel ambitus officio inserviant. 
 Porro, se non ignobilis alicujus aut contemnendi anima- 
 lis curam suscepisse ; ut enirn, humaui generis pretiurn 
 agnoscas, UNIGENITCS DEI FILIUS, homo factus est 
 adeoque naturam assumptam sua dignatione nobilitavit. 
 Denique, nee se communi sorte, exemptum esse, sed 
 iisdem legibus mortalitatis, iisdem casibus et osrumuis, 
 obnoxium atque expositum, quibus alii quilibet ; quo 
 diligentius et quidem teneriori cum afFectu, ipse plane 
 6/xoto7ra0v;s aegrotantibus opem ferre conetur."
 
 LOCKE AND STDENHAM. 67 
 
 When it is the free outcome of an earnest, sincere, and 
 ample nature, this sadden reference to Divine things 
 this involuntary Oh altitudo! in the midst of a purely 
 technical exposition, has an effect, and moves the hearer 
 far beyond any mere elaborate and foreseen argumenta- 
 tion. When a youth is told beforehand what you mean 
 to make him believe, and, above all, what you mean to 
 insist that he must feel you have much of him against 
 you. You should take him before he is aware; and, 
 besides, if this burst of emotion is the expression of an 
 inward restraint, carried to its utmost, and then forced 
 into utterance ; if the speaker has resisted being moved, 
 and is moved in spite of himself, then is he surest to 
 move those upon whom he is acting. The full power of 
 lightning is due to speed and concentration you have 
 it in the Teutonic Blitz, gone as soon as come. 
 
 Such of our readers (a fast-lessening band !) as were 
 pupils of that remarkable man and first-rate teacher, Dr. 
 John Barclay, must remember well his sudden bursts 
 of this kind, made all the more memorable, that he 
 disliked formal moralizing upon his favorite science. 
 There was one occasion when he never failed to break 
 out. It was when concluding his description of the 
 bones of the skull. His old pupils knew what was com- 
 ing, the new ones were set a wondering ; all saw some 
 suppressed emotion working within him, his language 
 was more close and rapid ; that homely, sensible, honest 
 face, was eager with some unacknowledged central feel 
 ing, and after finishing the Sella Turcica, and the clinoid 
 processes, he threw down the sphenoid bone, and the 
 time being up, and his hand on the open door of that 
 well-known arena in which he moved, he seemed as if 
 leaving ; indeed, we believe he intended then to leave.
 
 68 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 when turning round upon the class, with a face serious 
 almost to anger, and a voice trembling with feeling, he 
 said, "Yes, gentlemen! there is a God, omnipotent, 
 omniscient, and eternal" as he vanished under the gal- 
 lery into his room. Depend upon it, this single sentence 
 made a deeper impression on his hearers than any more 
 elaborate demonstration after the manner of Paley. The 
 ardent old man did not linger among particulars, but 
 passed at once, and with a sort of passionate fervor, to 
 the full absolute assertion. 
 
 Two examples of these brief lightnings, which at one 
 flash " unfold both earth and heaven," occur to us now. 
 Dr. Dick, in his System of Theology, at the close of his 
 lecture on the Immensity and Omnipresence of the De- 
 ity, pictures a man about to commit some great sin, as 
 shutting himself in his room, or going into the depths of 
 an unfrequented \wood, so as to get absolutely by him- 
 self, and then turning and looking and looking again to 
 make sure " let him turn and look again ! " 
 
 And John Foster, in that intense bit of spiritual vivi- 
 section, the Preface to Doddridgc's Rise and Progress, 
 when minuting the process of a step-by-step descent into 
 the deepest meditative wickedness and impiety, the very 
 " superfluity of naughtiness," represents the person as 
 speaking his last thought aloud, and starting at his own 
 voice, and his desperate sin, and then exclaiming, "If 
 anyone were within hearing ! " If anyone were ivithin 
 hearing! as if some One had not all the while been 
 within hearing. 
 
 The following are a few quotations, taken at random, 
 from Sydenham's various treatises and letters, in which 
 we may see what he himself was as a practitioner, and 
 what were his views as to the only way in which Medi 
 cine, as an art, could be advanced.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 69 
 
 In his Epistle to Dr. Mapletoft, prefixed to the Ob- 
 servationes Medicce, his first publication, when he was 
 forty-two years of age, he gives his friend a long and 
 entertaining account of his early professional life, and 
 thus proceeds : " Having returned to London, I began 
 the practice of Medicine, which when I studied curiously 
 with most intent eye (intenio admodum oculo) and ut- 
 most diligence, I carce to this conviction, which to this 
 day increases in strength, that our art is not to be better 
 learned than by its exercise and use ; and that it is 
 likely in every case to prove true, that those who have 
 directed their eyes and their mind, the most accurately 
 and diligently, to the natural phenomena of diseases, will 
 excel in eliciting and applying the true indications of 
 cure. With this thread as my guide, I first applied my 
 mind to a closer observation of fevers, and after no small 
 amount of irksome waiting, and perplexing mental agi- 
 tations, which I had to endure for several years, I at 
 last fell upon a method by which, as I thought, they 
 might be cured, which method I some time ago made 
 public, at the urgent request of my friends." 
 
 He then refers to the persecution and calumnies he 
 had been exposed to from the profession, who looked 
 upon him as a pestilent fellow, and a setter forth of 
 strange doctrines ; adopting the noble saying of Titus 
 Tacitus in reply to Metellus : " Facile est in me dicere, 
 cum non sim respousurus ; tu didicisti maledicere ; ego, 
 conscientia teste, didici maledicta coutemnere. Si tu 
 lingua) tuae dominus es, et quicquid lubet effutias ; ego 
 aurium mearum sum dominus, ut quicquid obvenerit 
 audiant inoffensae." * It is easy to speak against me 
 
 1 Sydenham here quotes from memory, as Bacon, and many other 
 men of that time, whose minds were full of the classics, often did, and
 
 70 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 when I make no reply ; you have learned to speak -evil ; 
 I, my conscience bearing me witness, have learned to 
 despise evil speaking. You are master of your tongue, 
 and can make it utter what you list ; I am master of my 
 ears, and can make them hear without being offended. 
 
 And, after making the reference we have already 
 mentioned, to his method having had the sanction and 
 assistance of Locke, he thus concludes in regard to the 
 ultimate success of his newly discovered way, "As 
 concerns the future, I cast the die, not overcareful how 
 it may fall, for, since I am now no longer young, and 
 have, by the blessing of the Almighty, a sufficient pro- 
 vision for the remainder of my journey (tuntum mild est 
 viatici, quantum restat vice), I will do my best to attain, 
 without trouble to myself or others, that measure of 
 happiness so beautifully depicted by Politian : 
 
 'Felix ille animi, dh'isque simillimus ipsis, 
 Quern non mendaci resplendens gloria fuco 
 Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus. 
 Sed tacitos sinit ire dies, etpaupere cultu 
 Exiyit innocuce tranguilla silentia vitce.' " 
 
 We shall now give more fully his peculiar views, and 
 in order to render him due honor for originating and 
 acting upon them, we must remember in the midst of 
 what a mass of errors and prejudices, of theories actively 
 mischievous, he was placed, at a time when the mania of 
 hypothesis was at its height, and when the practical part 
 of his art was overrun and stultified by vile and silly 
 
 none of the commentators have discovered the exact passage. The 
 remark is in Beyerlinck, Magn. Theatr. Vit. Human., torn. vi. page 
 60, H. (Lugd. 1GG6, folio), referred to by Dr. Greenhill. It is as fol- 
 lows : "Tacitus Lucio Metello ei in Senatu maledicenti respondit, 
 'Facile est in me dicere, quia non responsurus sum, potentia ergo tua 
 non mea patieutia est accusanda.' " Seneca is referred to by Beyer 
 linck.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 71 
 
 nostrums. We must have all this in our mind, or we 
 shall fail in estimating the amount of independent 
 thought, of courage and uprightness, and of all that de- 
 serves to be called magnanimity and virtue, which was 
 involved in his thinking and writing and acting as he 
 did. 
 
 " The improvement of physic, in my opinion, depends, 
 1st, Upon collecting as genuine and natural a description 
 or history of diseases as can be procured ; and, 2d, Upon 
 laying down a fixed and complete method of cure. With 
 regard to the history of diseases, whoever considers the 
 undertaking deliberately will perceive that a few such 
 particulars must be attended to : 1st, All diseases should 
 be described as objects of natural history, with the same 
 exactness as is done by botanists, for there are many 
 diseases that come under the same genus and bear the 
 same name, that, being specifically different, require a 
 different treatment. The word carduus or thistle, is ap- 
 plied to several herbs, and yet a botanist would be inac- 
 curate and imperfect who would content himself with a 
 generic description. Furthermore, when this distribu- 
 tion of distempers into genera has been attempted, it has 
 been to fit into some hypothesis, and hence this distri- 
 bution is made to suit the bent of the author rather than 
 the real nature of the disorder. How much this has ob- 
 structed the improvement of physic any man may know. 
 In writing, therefore, such a natural history of diseases, 
 every merely philosophical hypothesis should be set 
 aside, and the manifest and natural phenomena, how- 
 ever minute, should be noted with the utmost exactness. 
 The usefulness of this procedure cannot be easily over- 
 rated, as compared with the subtle inquiries and trifling 
 notions of modern writers ; for can there be a shorter, or
 
 72 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 indeed any other way, of coming at the morbific causes, 
 or of discovering the curative indications, than by a cer- 
 tain perception of the peculiar symptoms ? By these 
 steps and helps it was that the father of physic, the 
 great Hippocrates, came to excel; his theory (Oempia) be- 
 ing no more than an exact description or view of Nature. 
 He found that Nature alone often terminates diseases, 
 and works a cure with a few simple medicines, and often 
 enough with no medicines at all. If only one person 
 in every age had accurately described, and consistently 
 cured, but a single disease, and made known his secret, 
 physic would not be where it now is ; but we have long 
 since forsook the ancient method of cure, founded upon 
 the knowledge of conjunct causes, insomuch that the art, 
 as at this day practised, is rather the art of talking 
 about diseases than of curing them. I make this digres- 
 sion in order to assert, that the discovering and assigning 
 of remote cau s, which nowadays so much engrosses 
 the minds and feeds the vanity of curious inquirers, is 
 an impossible attempt, and that only immediate and 
 conjunct causes fall within the compass of our knowl- 
 edge." Or as he elsewhere pithily states it : " Cogni- 
 tio nostra, in rerum cortice, omnis ferme versatur, ac ad 
 TO on sive "quod res hoc modo se habeat, fere tan turn 
 assurgit ; TO SIOTI, sive rerum causas, nullatenus attingit." 
 His friend Locke could not have stated the case more 
 clearly or sensibly. It is this doctrine of "conjunct 
 causes," this necessity for watching the action of com- 
 pound and often opposing forces, and the having to do 
 all this not in a machine, of which if you have seen one, 
 you have seen all, but where each organism has often 
 much that is different from, as well as common with all 
 others. Here you must mend your watch while it is go-
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 73 
 
 ing, you must shoot your game on the wing. It is this 
 which takes medicine out of the category of exact sci- 
 ences, and puts it into that which includes politics, ethics, 
 navigation, and practical engineering, in all of which, 
 though there are principles, and those principles quite 
 within the scope of human reason, yet the application of 
 these principles must, in the main, be left to each man's 
 skill, presence of mind, and judgment, as to the case in 
 hand. 
 
 It is in medicine as in the piloting of a ship rules 
 may be laid down, principles expounded, charts exhib- 
 ited ; but when a man has made himself master of all 
 these, he will often find his ship among breakers and 
 quicksands, and must at last have recourse to his own 
 craft and courage. Gaubius, in his admirable chapter, 
 De disciplina Medici, thus speaks of the reasonable cer- 
 tainty of medicine as distinguished from the absolute 
 certainty of the exact sciences, and at the same time 
 gives a very just idea of the infinite (as far as concerns 
 our limited powers of sense and judgment) multiplicity 
 of the phenomena of disease : " Nee vero sufficit med- 
 icum communia modo intueri ; oportet et cuivis homini 
 propria, quae quidem diversitas tarn immensa occurrit ut 
 nulla observatiouum vi exhauriri possit. Sola, denique 
 contemplutione non licet acquiescere, inque obscuris 
 rebus suspendere judicium, donee lux affulgeat. Actio- 
 nem exigit officium. Caplanda hinc agendi occasio, qua 
 scepe prceceps, per conjectiiram cogit determinare, quod 
 per scienliam sat cito nequit. Audiant hasc obtrectato- 
 res, et cum didicerint scienlias puras, ab iis quas ap- 
 plicatas vocaut, contemplativas a practicis, distinguere, 
 videant quo jure medicinam pro) aliis, ut omnis certi ex- 
 pertem, infament."
 
 74 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 It would not be easy to put more important truth into 
 clearer expression. Conjecture, in its good sense, as 
 meaning the throwing together of a number of the ele- 
 ments of judgment, and taking what upon the whole is 
 the most likely, and acting accordingly, has, and will 
 ever have, a main part to play in any art that concerns 
 human nature, in its entireness and in action. AYhen in 
 obscure and dangerous places, we must not contemplate, 
 we must act, it may be on the instant. This is what 
 makes medicine so much more of an art than a science, 
 and dependent so much more upon the agent than upon 
 his instructions ; and this it is that makes us so earnest 
 in our cautions against the supposition that any amount 
 of scientific truth, the most accurate and extensive, can 
 in mediciJe supersede the necessity of the recipient of all 
 this knowledge having, as Richard Baxter says, by nat- 
 ure " a special sagacity, a naturally searching and 
 conjecturing turn of mind." Moreover, this faculty must 
 be disciplined and exercised in its proper function, by 
 being not a hearer only, but also a doer, an apprentice 
 ss well as a student, and by being put under the tutor- 
 age of a master who exercises as well as expounds his 
 calling. 
 
 This native gift and its appropriate object have been 
 so justly, so beautifully described by Hartley Coleridge 
 in his Life of Fothergill, that we cannot refrain from 
 closing our remarks on this subject by quoting his words. 
 Do our readers know his Biographia Borealis ? If they 
 do, they will agree with us in placing it among the pleas- 
 antest books in our language, just such a one as Plu- 
 tarch, had he been an Englishman, would have written : 
 " There are certain inward gifts, more akin to geniu? 
 than to talent, which make the physician prosper, and
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 75 
 
 deserve to prosper; for medicine is not like practical 
 geometry, or the doctrine of projectiles, an application 
 of an abstract, demonstrable science, in which a certain 
 result may be infallibly drawn from certain data, or in 
 which the disturbing forces may be calculated with sci- 
 entific exactness. It is a tentative art, to succeed in 
 which demands a quickness of eye, thought, tact, inven 
 tion, which are not to be learned by study, nor, unless 
 by connatural aptitude, to be acquired by experience ; 
 and it is the possession of this sense, exercised by a pa- 
 tient observation, and fortified by a just reliance on the 
 vis medicatrix, the self-adjusting tendency of nature, 
 that constitutes the true physician or healer, as imagina- 
 tion constitutes the poet, and brings it to pass, that some- 
 times an old apothecary, not far removed from an old 
 woman, and whose ordinary conversation savors, it may 
 be, largely of twaddle, who can seldom give a rational 
 account of a case or its treatment, acquires, and justly, 
 a reputation for infallibility, while men of talent and 
 erudition are admired and neglected ; the truth being, that 
 there is a great deal that is mysterious in whatever is 
 practical." 
 
 But to return to our author. He was the first to point 
 out what he called the varying " constitutions " of differ- 
 ent years in relation to their respective epidemics, and 
 the importance of watching the type of each new epi- 
 demic before settling the means of cure. In none of 
 his works is his philosophic spirit, and the subtlety and 
 clearness of his understanding, shown more signally than 
 in his successive histories of the epidemics of his time. 
 Nothing equal to them has ever appeared since; and the. 
 full importance of the principles he was the first to lay 
 iown, is only now beginning to be acknowledged. His
 
 I 
 
 76 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 confession as to his entirely failing to discover what made 
 one epidemic so to differ from another, has been amply 
 confirmed by all succeeding observers. He says, "I 
 have carefully examined the different constitutions of 
 different years as to the manifest qualities of the air, 
 yet I must own I have hitherto made no progress, hav 
 ing found that years, perfectly agreeing as to their tem- 
 perature and other sensible properties, have produced 
 very different tribes of diseases, and vice versa. The 
 matter seems to stand thus : there are certain constitu- 
 tions of years that owe their origin neither to heat, cold, 
 dryness, nor moisture, but upon a certain secret and in- 
 explicable alteration in the bowels of the earth, whence 
 the air becomes impregnated with such kinds of effluvia, 
 as subject the human body to distempers of a certain 
 specific type." 
 
 As to the early treatment of a new epidemic, he says, 
 " My chief care, in the midst of so much darkness and 
 ignorance, is to wait a little, and proceed very slowly, 
 especially in the use of powerful remedies, in the mean- 
 time observing its nature and procedure, and by what 
 means the patient was relieved or injured ; " and he con- 
 cludes by regretting the imperfection of his observations, 
 ind hoping that they will assist in beginning a work 
 that, in his judgment, will greatly tend to the advantage 
 of mankind. Had his successors followed in his track 
 with equal sagacity and circumspection, our knowledge 
 of these destructive and mysterious incursions of disease 
 would, in all likelihood, have been greatly larger and 
 more practical than it is now. 
 
 Sydenham is well known to have effected a revolution 
 in the management of the small-pox, and to have intro- 
 duced a method of treatment upon, which no material
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 77 
 
 improvement has since been made. We owe the cool 
 regimen to him. Speaking of the propriety of attend- 
 ing to the wishes of the sufferer, he says, with equal 
 humanity and good sense, "A person in a burning 
 fever desires to drink freely of some small liquor ; but 
 the rules of art, built upon some hypothesis, having a 
 different design in view, thwart the desire, and instead 
 thereof, order a cordial. In the mean time the patient, 
 not being suffered to drink what he wishes, nauseates all 
 kinds of food, but art commands him to eat. Another, 
 after a long illness, begs hard, it may be, for some- 
 thing odd, or questionable ; here, again, impertinent art 
 thwarts him and threatens him with death. How much 
 more excellent the aphorism of Hippocrates 'Such 
 food as is most grateful, though not so wholesome, is to 
 be preferred to that which is better, but distasteful.' 
 Nor will this appear strange, if it be considered that the 
 all-wise Creator has formed the whole with such exqui- 
 site order, that, as all the evils of nature eminently con- 
 spire to complete the harmony of the whole work, so 
 every being is endowed with a Divine direction or in- 
 stinct, which is interwoven with its proper essence, and 
 hence the safety of mankind was provided for, who, not- 
 withstanding all our doctoring, had been otherwise in a 
 sad enough plight." Again " He would be no honest 
 .ind successful pilot who were to apply himself with less 
 industry to avoid rocks and sands, and bring his vessel 
 safely home, than to search into the causes of the ebbing 
 and the flowing of the sea, which, though very well for 
 a philosopher, is foreign to him whose business it is to 
 secure the ship. So neither will a physician, whose 
 province it is to cure diseases, be able to do so, though 
 he be a person of great genius, who bestows less time
 
 78 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 on the hidden and intricate method of nature, and adapt- 
 ing his means thereto, than on curious and subtle specu- 
 lations." 
 
 The following is frank enough : " Indeed, if I may 
 speak my mind freel}', I have been long of opinion that 
 I act the part of an honest man and a good physician as 
 often as I refrain entirely from medicines, when, upon 
 visiting the patient, I find him no worse to-day than he 
 was yesterday ; whereas, if I attempt to cure the patient 
 by a method of which I am uncertain, he will be endan- 
 gered both by the experiment I am going to make on him 
 and by the disease itself; nor will he so easily escape two 
 dangers as one. 
 
 " That practice, and that alone, will bring relief to 
 the sufferer, which elicits the curative indications from 
 the phenomena of the diseases themselves, and confirms 
 them by experience, by which means the great Hippoc- 
 rates made himself immortal. And had the art of med- 
 icine been delivered by anyone in this wise, though the 
 cure of a disease or two might come to be known to the 
 common people, yet the art in its full extent would then 
 have required men more prudent and skilful than it 
 does now, nor would it lose any of its credit ; for as 
 there is in the operations of Nature (on the observa- 
 tions of which a true medical praxis is founded) more 
 of nicety and subtlety than can be found in any art sup- 
 ported on the most specious hypotheses, so the science 
 of Medicine which Nature teaches will exceed an ordi- 
 nary capacity in a much greater degree than that which 
 mere philosophy teaches." 
 
 There is much profound truth in this. Observation, 
 in its strict sense, is not every man's gift, and but few 
 men's actual habit of mind. Newton used to say, that
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 79 
 
 if in any one way he differed from other men, it was in 
 his power of continued attention of faithful, unbroken 
 observation ; his ladder had all its steps entire, and he 
 went up with a composed, orderly foot. It requires 
 more strength and fineness of mind, more of what de- 
 serves to be called genius, to make a series of genuine 
 bservations in Medicine, or any other art, than to spin 
 ny amount of nice hypotheses, or build any number of 
 castella in aere" as Sydenham calls them. The observ- 
 er's object and it is no mean one is 
 
 " To know what 's what, and that 's as high 
 As Metaphysic wit can fly." 
 
 Sydenham adds, " Nor will the publication of such 
 observations diminish but rather increase the reputation 
 of our art, which, being rendered more difficult, as well 
 as more useful, only men of sagacity and keen sound 
 judgment would be admitted as physicians." How true 
 to the sayings of his great master in his Novum Orga- 
 num, "Nature is only subdued by submission." "The 
 subtilty of nature is far beyond that of sense, or of the 
 understanding, and the specious meditations and theories 
 of mankind are but a kind of insanity, only there is no 
 one to stand by and observe it ! " There is a very re- 
 markable passage in Sydenham's Treatise of the Dropsy, 
 in which, after quoting this curious passage from Hip- 
 pocrates, " Certain physicians and philosophers say that 
 .t is impossible for any man to understand medicine 
 without knowing the internal structure of man ; for my 
 part, I think that what they have written or said of nat- 
 ure pertains less to the medical than the pictorial art," 
 he asserts not only his own strong conviction of the im- 
 portance of a knowledge of minute anatomy to the prac- 
 titioner, but also his opinion that what Hippocrates
 
 80 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 meant, was to caution against depending too much on, 
 and expecting too much help from, anatomical researches, 
 to the superseding of the scrupulous observation of liv- 
 ing phenomena, of successive actions. 1 " For in all dis- 
 eases, acute and chronic, it must be owned there is an 
 inscrutable TI Oeiov, a specific property which eludes the 
 keenest anatomy." 
 
 He then goes on to say, that as Hippocrates censured 
 the abuse of anatomy, so in his own day, there were 
 many who, in like manner, raised hopes for Physic from 
 discoveries in Chemistry, which, in the nature of things, 
 never could be realized, and which only served to dis- 
 tract from the true Hippocratic method of induction ; 
 " for the chief deficiency of medicine is not a want of 
 efficacious medicine. Whoever considers the matter 
 thoroughly, will find that the principal defect on the 
 
 l As far as the cure of diseases is concerned, Medicine has more to 
 do with human Dynamics than Statics, for whatever be the essence of 
 life and as yet this rl Oeiov, this nescimus quid divinum, has defied 
 all scrutiny it is made known to us chiefly by certain activities or 
 changes. It is the tendency at the present time of medical research 
 to reverse this order. Morbid anatomy, microscopical investigations, 
 though not confined to states or conditions of parts, must regard them 
 fully more than actions and functions. This is probably what Stahl 
 means when he says," Ubi Physicus desinit, Medicus incipit; " and in 
 'he following passage of his rough Tudcsque Latin, he plainly alludes 
 ;o the tendency, in his day, to dwell too much upon the materials of 
 the human body, without considering its actions lt ut vivens." The 
 passage is full of the subtilty and fire and depth of that wonderful 
 man. " Undique hinc material advertitur animus, et quas crassius in 
 sensum impingit conformatio, et mutua proportio corporea considera- 
 tur ; motitum ordo, vis, et absoluta magis in materiam eneryia, tem- 
 pora ejus, gradus, vices, maxime autem omnium, fines obiter in ani- 
 mum admittuntur." The human machine has been compared to a 
 watch, and some hope that in due time doctors will be as good at their 
 craft as watchmakers are at theirs ; but watchmakers are not called 
 n to mend their work while it is going ; this makes all the difference
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 81 
 
 part of physic proceeds, not from a scarcity of medicines 
 to answer particular intentions, but from the want of 
 knowing the intentions to be answered, for an apotheca- 
 ry's apprentice can tell me what medicine will purge, 
 vomit, or sweat, or cool ; but a man must be conversant 
 with practice who is able to tell me when is the proper- 
 est time for administering any of them." 
 
 He is constantly inculcating the necessity of getting 
 our diagnostic knowledge at first-hand, ridiculing those 
 descriptions of disease which the manufacturers of " Bod- 
 ies of medicine," "Hand-books," and such like, make 
 up in their studies, and which are oftener compositions 
 than portraits, or at the best bad copies, and which the 
 young student will find it hard enough to identify in 
 real life. There is too much of this we fear still ; and 
 Montaigne, who rejoices in having a sly hit at his cro- 
 nies the doctors, might still say with some reason, " Like 
 him who paints the sea, rocks, and heavens, and draws 
 the model of a ship as he sits safe at his table ; but send 
 aim to sea, and he knows not how or where to steer ; 
 so doctors oftentimes make such a description of our 
 maladies as a town-crier does of a lost dog or donkey, 
 of such a color and height, such ears, etc. ; but bring 
 the very animal before him, and he knows it not for all 
 that." 
 
 Everywhere our author acknowledges the vis medi- 
 catrix naturae, by which alone so many diseases are 
 cured, and without or against which none, and by di- 
 recting and helping which medicine best fulfils its end : 
 " For I do not think it below me or my art to acknowl- 
 edge, with respect to the cure of fevers and other dis- 
 tempers, that when no manifest indication pointed out 
 o me what should be done, I have consulted my pa- 
 6
 
 82 LOCKE AND SVDENHAJI. 
 
 tient's safety and my own reputation, most effectually, 
 by doing nothing at all. 1 But it is much to be lamented 
 that abundance of patients are so ignorant as not to 
 know, that it is sometimes as much the part of a skilful 
 physician to do nothing, as at others to apply the most 
 energetic remedies, whence they not only deprive them- 
 selves of fair and honorable treatment, but impute it to 
 ignorance or negligence." 
 
 We conclude these extracts with a picturesque de- 
 scription. It is a case of " the hysterics " in a man : 
 " I was called not long since to an ingenious gentleman 
 who had recovered from a fever, but a few days before 
 he had employed another physician, who blooded and 
 purged him soundly, and forbade him the use of flesh. 
 When I came I found him up, and heard him talking 
 sensibly. I asked why I was sent for, to which one of 
 his friends replied with a wink, Wait and you '11 see. 
 Accordingly, sitting down and entering into discourse 
 with the patient, I perceived his under lip was thrust 
 outwards, and in frequent motion, as happens to peevish 
 children, who pout before they cry, which was succeeded 
 by the most violent fit of crying, with deep convulsive 
 sobs. I conceived this was occasioned partly by his long 
 illness, partly by the previous evacuations, and partly 
 by emptiness ; I therefore ordered him a roast chicken, 
 and a pint of Canary" Felix ille ! 
 
 His shrewdness and humor are shown in the story 
 Dr. Paris tells in his Pharmacologia. 
 
 " This great physician, Sydenham, having long at- 
 tended a gentleman of fortune with little or no advan- 
 tage, frankly avowed his inability to render him any 
 further service, adding at the same time, that there was 
 a physician of the name of Robertson, at Inverness, 
 See note B.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 83 
 
 *sho had distinguished himself by the performance of 
 many remarkable cures of the same complaint as that 
 under which his patient labored, and expressing a con- 
 viction that, if he applied to him, he would come back 
 cured. This was too encouraging a proposal to be re- 
 jected ; the gentleman received from Sydenham a state- 
 ment of his case, with the necessary letter of introduc- 
 tion, and proceeded without delay to the place iu 
 question. On arriving at Inverness, and anxiously in- 
 quiring for the residence of Dr. Robertson, he found to 
 his utter dismay and disappointment that there was no 
 physician of that name, nor ever had been in the mem- 
 ory of any person there. The gentleman returned, vow- 
 ing eternal hostility to the peace of Sydenham, and on 
 his arrival at home, instantly expressed his indignation 
 at having been sent on a journey of so many hundred 
 miles for no purpose. ' Well,' replies Sydenham, ' are 
 you better in health?' 'Yes, / am now quite well ; 
 but no thanks to you.' ' No,' says Sydenham, ' but 
 you may thank Dr. Robertson for curing you. I wished 
 to send you a journey with some object of interest in 
 view ; I knew it would be of service to you ; in going, 
 you had Dr. Robertson and his wonderful cures in con- 
 templation ; and in returning, you were equally engaged 
 in thinking of scolding me.' " 
 
 In making these selections we have done our author 
 great injustice, partly from having to give them either 
 in Swan's translation or our own, and thereby losing 
 much of the dignity and nerve the flavor, or what 
 artists would call the crispness of the original ; partly 
 also from our being obliged to exclude strictly profes- 
 sional discussions, in which, as might be expected, his 
 chief value and strength lie.
 
 84 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM 
 
 We know nothing in medical literature more finished 
 than his letter to Dr. Cole on the hysterical passion, 
 and his monograph of the gout. Well might Edward 
 Hannes, the friend of Addison, in his verses on Syden- 
 ham, thus sing : 
 
 " Sic te scientem non faciunt libri 
 Et dogma pulchrum ; sed sapientia 
 Enata rebus, mensque facti 
 Experiens, auim usque felix." 
 
 It would not be easy to over-estimate the permanent 
 impression for good which the writings, the character, and 
 the practice of Sydenham have made on the art of heal- 
 ing in England, and on the Continent generally. In the 
 writings of Boerhaave, Stahl, Gaubius, Piuel, Bordeu, 
 Haller, and many others, he is spoken of as the father 
 of rational medicine ; as the first man who applied to his 
 profession the Baconian principles of interpreting and 
 serving nature, and who never forgot the master's rule, 
 " Non fingendum aut excogitandum, sed inveniendum, 
 quid natura aut faciat aut ferat." He was what Plato 
 would have called an " artsman" as distinguished from 
 a doctor of abstract science. But he was by no means 
 deficient in either the capacity or the relish for specula- 
 tive truth. Like all men of a large practical nature, he 
 could not have been what he was, or done what he did, 
 without possessing and often exercising the true philoso- 
 phizing faculty. Pie was a man of the same quality of 
 mind in this respect with Watt, Franklin, and John 
 Hunter, in whom speculation was not the less genuine 
 that it was with them a means rather than an end. 
 
 This distinction between the science, and the art or 
 craft, or as it was often called the cunning of medicine, 
 is one we have already insisted upon, and the importance
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 85 
 
 of which we consider very-great, in the present condi- 
 tion of this department of knowledge and practice. We 
 are nowadays in danger of neglecting our art in master- 
 ing our science, though medicine in its ultimate resort 
 must always be more of an art than of a science. It be- 
 ing the object of the student of physic to learn or know 
 some thing or things, in order to be able safely, effectu- 
 ally, and at once, to do some other thing ; and inasmuch 
 as human nature cannot contain more than its fill, a man 
 may not only have in his head much scientific truth 
 which is useless, but it may shut out and hinder and 
 render altogether ineffectual, the active, practical work- 
 manlike faculties, for whose use his knowledge was pri- 
 marily got. It is the remark of a profound thinker, 
 that i( all professional men labor under a great disadvan- 
 tage in not being allowed to be ignorant of what is use- 
 less ; every one fancies that he is bound to receive and 
 transmit whatever is believed to have been known." 
 
 " It appears to be possible," says Dr. Thomas Young, 
 in his Life of Porson, " that a memory may in itself be 
 even too retentive for real practical utility, as if of too 
 microscopic a nature ; and it seems to be by a wise and 
 benevolent, though by no means an obvious, arrange- 
 ment of a Creative Providence, that a certain degree of 
 oblivion becomes a most useful instrument in the advance- 
 ment of human knowledge, enabling us readily to look 
 back on the prominent features only of various objects 
 and occurrences, and to class them, and reason upon 
 them, by the help of this involuntary kind of abstraction 
 and generalization, with incomparably greater facility 
 than we could do if we retained the whole detail of what 
 had been once but slightly impressed on our minds. It 
 s thus, for example, in physic, that the experienced
 
 83 LOCKE AXD SYDENHAM. 
 
 practitioner learns at length to despise the relation of 
 individual symptoms and particular cases, on which 
 alone the empiric insists, and to feel the value of the 
 Hippocratic system of ' attending more to the prognos- 
 tic than the diagnostic features of disease;' which, to a 
 younger student, appears to be perfect imbecility." 
 
 This subject of art and science is hinted at, with his 
 usual sagacity, by Plato, in a singular passage in his 
 Theaetetus: "Particulars," he says, "are infinite, and 
 the higher generalities give no sufficient direction in 
 medicine ; but the pith of all sciences, that which makes 
 the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle prop- 
 ositions, which, in every particular knowledge, are taken 
 from tradition and inexperience." * It would not be 
 easy to convey in fewer words, more of what deserves 
 the name of the philosophy of this entire subject, and 
 few things would be more for the advantage of the best 
 interests of all arts and sciences, and all true progress 
 in human knowledge and power, than the taking this 
 passage and treating it exegetically, as a divine would 
 say, bringing out fully its meaning, and illustrating 
 it by examples. Scientific truth is to the mind of a phy- 
 
 1 Being anxious to see what was the context of this remarkable 
 passage, which Bacon quotes, as if verbatim, in his Advancement of 
 Learning, we hunted through the Theaetetus, but in vain. We set two 
 friends, thoroughbred Grecians, upon the scent, but they could find no 
 such passage. One of them then spoke to Sir William Hamilton, and 
 he told him that he had marked that passage as not being a literal 
 translation of any sentence in Plato's writings. He considered it a 
 quotation from memory, and as giving the substance of a passage in 
 the Philebus, which occurs in the 6th and 7th of the forty-two sections 
 of that Dialogue. Perhaps the sentence which comes nearest to the 
 words of Bacon is the last in the 6th section, beginning with the words 
 
 01 ift vvv Ttav av9p<air(av &6<f>oi. Ta Se fieVa airoGs exfitvyu, of which hd 
 
 speaks, seem to be equivalent to "the middle propositions."
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 87 
 
 sician what food is to his body ; but, in order to his 
 mhid being nourished and growing by this food, it must 
 be assimilated it must undergo a vital internal change 
 
 must be transformed, transmuted, and lose its original 
 form. This destruction of former identity this losing 
 of itself in being received into the general mass of truth 
 
 is necessary in order to bring abstract truth into the 
 condition of what Plato calls " the middle propositions," 
 or, as Mr. Mill calls them, the generalia of knowledge. 1 
 These are such truths, as have been appropriated, and 
 vitally adopted, by the mind, and which, to use Bacon's 
 strong words, have been " drenched in flesh and blood," 
 have been turned " in succum et sanguinem ; " for man's 
 mind cannot, any more than his body, live on mere ele- 
 mentary substances ; he must have fat, albumen, and 
 sugar ; he can make nothing of their elements, bare car- 
 bon, azote, or hydrogen. And more than this, as we 
 have said, he must digest and disintegrate his food be- 
 
 1 The following we give as a sort of abstract of a valuable chapter 
 n Mill's Logic on "The Logic of Art: " An art, or a body of art, 
 "nsists of rules, together with as much of the speculative propositions 
 as comprises the justification of those rules. Art selects and arranges 
 the truths of science in the most convenient order for practice, instead 
 of the order most convenient for thought science following one cause 
 to its various effects, while art traces one effect to its multiplied and 
 diversified causes and conditions. There is need of a set of intermedi- 
 ate scientific truths, derived from the higher generalities of science, and 
 destined to serve as the (jeneralia or first principles of art. The art 
 proposes for itself an end to be gained, defines the end, and hands it 
 over to science. Science receives it, studies it as a phenomenon or effect, 
 and having investigated its causes acd conditions, sends it back to art, 
 \vith a rationale of its cause or causes, but nothing more. Art then 
 examines their combinations, and according as any of them are or are 
 not in human power, or within the scope of its particular end, pro- 
 nounces upon their utility, and forms a rule of action. The rules of 
 art do not attempt to comprise more conditions than require to be at- 
 tended to in ordinary cases, and therefore are always imperfect.
 
 88 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM, 
 
 fore it can be of any use to him. In this view, as in 
 another and a higher, we may use the sacred words, 
 " That which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
 die; except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 
 die, it ahideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth 
 much fruit ; " for as it is a law of vegetable life, that a 
 seed does not begin to pass into a new form, does not be- 
 gin to grow into a plant, until its own nature is changed, 
 and its original condition is broken up, until it " dies " 
 in giving birth to something better, so is it with scien- 
 tific truth, taken into or planted in the mind, it must 
 die, else it abides alone it does not germinate. 
 
 Had Plato lived now, he might well have said, "par- 
 ticulars are infinite." Facts, as such, are merely so 
 many units, and are often rather an encumbrance to 
 the practical man than otherwise. These " middle prop- 
 ositions " stand mid-way between the facts in their in- 
 finity and speculative truth in its abstract inertness ; 
 they take from both what they need, and they form a 
 tertium quid, upon which the mind can act practically, 
 and reason upon in practice, and form rules of action. 1 
 
 1 Locke thus puts it: "As a help to this, I think it may be pro- 
 posed that, for the saving the long progression of the thoughts to re- 
 mote and first principles in every case, the mind should provide itself 
 several stages; that is to say, intermediate principles, which it might 
 have recourse to in the examining those positions that come in its way. 
 These, though they are not self-evident principles, yet if they have 
 been made out from them by a wary j-ii'l unquestionable deduction, 
 may be depended on as certain and infallible truths, and serve as un- 
 questionable truths to prove other points depending on them by a 
 nearer and shorter view than remote and geueral maxims. These may 
 serve as landmarks to show what lies in the direct way of truth, or is 
 quite besides it. ... Only in other sciences great care is to be taken 
 that they establish those intermediate principles with as much caution, 
 exactness, and indifferency, as mathematicians use in the settling any 
 Df their great theorems. When this is not done but men take up tin
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 89 
 
 * 
 
 Sydenham, Hippocrates, Abernethy, Pott, Hunter, Bail- 
 lie, Abercrombie, and such like, among physicians, are 
 great in the region of the " middle propositions." They 
 selected their particulars their instances, and they made 
 their higher generalities come down, they appropriated 
 them, and turned them into blood, bone, and sinew. 
 
 The great problem in the education of young men for 
 the practice of medicine in our times, is to know how 
 to make the infinity of particulars, the prodigious treas- 
 ures of mere science, available for practice how the 
 art may keep pace with, and take the maximum of good 
 out of the science. We have often thought that the ap- 
 prenticeship system is going too much into disrepute. 
 It had its manifest and great evils ; but there was much 
 good got by it that is not to be got in any other way. 
 The personal authority and attachment, the imitation of 
 their master the watching his doings, and picking up 
 the odds and ends of his experience the coming under 
 the influence of his mind, following in his steps, looking 
 with his eyes, and unconsciously accumulating a stock of 
 knowledge, multifarious it might be, the good of which 
 was not fully known till after-years explained and con- 
 firmed its worth. There were other practical things 
 besides jokes learned and executed in the apprentices' 
 room, .and there were the friendships for life, on which 
 so much, not merely of the comfort, but the progress, 
 of a physician depends. Now, everything, at least most, 
 is done in public, in classes ; and it is necessarily with 
 
 principles in this or that science upon credit, inclination, interest, etc., 
 in haste, without due examination and most unquestionable proof, 
 they lay a trap for themselves, and as much as in them lies captivate 
 their understandings to mistake, falsehood, and error." Of the Con~ 
 duct of the Understanding, pp. 53, 54. London, 1859.
 
 90 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 the names of things rather than the things themselves, 
 or their management, that the young men have chiefly 
 to do. The memory 1 is exercised more than the senses 
 or the judgment ; and when the examination comes, as a 
 matter of course the student returns back to his teacher 
 as much as possible of what he has received from him, 
 and as much as possible in his very words. He goes 
 over innumerable names. There is little opportunity 
 even in anatomy for testing his power or his skill as a 
 workman, as an independent observer and judge, under 
 what Sir James Clark justly calls " the demoralizing 
 system of cramming" He repeats what is already known ; 
 he is not able to say how all or any of this knowledge 
 may be turned to practical account. Epictetus cleverly 
 illustrates this very system and its fruits : " As if sheep, 
 
 1 Professor Syme, in his Letter to Sir James Graham on the Med- 
 ical Bill, in which, in twelve pages, he puts the whole of this tiresome 
 question on its true footing, makes these weighty observations: 
 "As a teacher of nearly twenty-five years' standing, and well ac- 
 quainted with the dispositions, habits, and powers of medical students, 
 I beg to remark, that the system of repeated examinations on the 
 same subject by different Boards, especially if protracted beyond the 
 age of twenty-two, is greatly opposed to the acquisition of sound and 
 useful knowledge. Medicine, throughout all its departments, is a 
 scieuce of observation; memory alone, however retentive, or diligently 
 assisted by teaching, is unable to afford the qualifications for practice, 
 and it is only by digesting the facts learned, through reflection, com- 
 parison, and personal research, that they can be appropriated with im- 
 proving effect ; but when the mind is loaded with the minuthe of ele- 
 mentary medical and collateral study, it is incapable of the intense 
 and devoted attention essential to attaining any approach to excellence 
 in practical medicine and surgery. It has accordingly always ap- 
 peared to me, that the character of medical men depends less upon 
 what passes during the period even of studentship than upon the mode 
 in which they spend the next years, when, their trials and examina- 
 tions being over the whole strength of a young and disciplined intel 
 lect may be preparing itself for the business of life."
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 91 
 
 after they have been feeding, should present their shep- 
 herds with the very grass itself which they had cropped 
 and stvallowed, to show how much they had eaten, instead 
 of concocting it into wool and milk" 
 
 Men of the " middle propositions " are not clever, 
 glib expounders of their reasons ; they prefer doing a 
 thing to speaking about it, or how it may be done. We 
 remember hearing a young doctor relate how, on one 
 occasion when a student, he met with the lute Dr. Aber- 
 crombie, when visiting a man who was laboring under 
 what was considered malignant disease of the stomach. 
 He was present when that excellent man first saw the 
 patient along with his regular attendant. The doctor 
 walked into the room in his odd, rapid, indifferent way, 
 which many must recollect ; scrutinized all the curiosities 
 on the mantelpiece ; and then, as if by chance, found 
 himself at his patient's bedside ; but when there his eye 
 settled upon him intensely ; his whole mind was busily 
 at work. He asked a few plain questions ; spoke with 
 great kindness, but briefly ; and coming back to consult, 
 he said, to the astonishment of the surgeon and the 
 young student, " The mischief is all in the brain, the 
 stomach is affected merely through it. The case will do 
 no good ; he will get blind and convulsed, and die." 
 He then, in his considerate, simple way, went over what 
 might be done to palliate suffering and prolong life. 
 He was right. The man died as he said, and on exam- 
 ination the brain was found softened, the stomach sound. 
 The young student, who was intimate with Dr. Aber- 
 crombie, ventured to ask him what it was in the look of 
 the man that made him know at once. "I can't tell 
 you, I can hardly tell myself ; but I rest with confidence 
 upon the exactness and honesty of my past observations.
 
 92 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 I remember the result, and act upon it ; but I can't put 
 you, or, without infinite trouble, myself, in possession 
 of all the steps." " But would it not be a great saving 
 if you could tell others ? " said the young doctor. " It 
 would be no such thing ; it would be the worst thing that 
 could happen to you ; you would not know how to use 
 it. You must follow in the same road, and you will 
 get as far, and much farther. You must miss often 
 before you hit. You can't tell a man how to hit ; you 
 may tell him what to aim at." " Was it something in 
 the eye ? " said his inveterate querist. " Perhaps it 
 was," he said good-naturedly ; " but don't you go and 
 blister every man's occiput, whose eyes are, as you 
 think, like his." l 
 
 It would be well for the community, and for the real 
 good of the profession, if the ripe experience, the occa- 
 sional observations of such men as Sydenham and Aber- 
 crombie, formed the main amount of medical books, in- 
 stead of Vade-Mecums, Compendiums, and Systems, on 
 
 1 This is very clearly stated by Dr. Mandeville, the acute and no- 
 torious author of the Fable of the Sees, in his dialogues on the Hypo- 
 chondria, one of his best works, as full of good sense and learning as 
 of wit. "If you please to consider that there are no words in any 
 language for an hundredth part of all the minute differences that are 
 obvious to the skilful, you will soon find that a man may know a thing 
 perfectly well, and at the same time not be able to tell you why or how 
 he knows it. The practical knowledge of a physician, or at least the 
 most considerable part of it, is the result of a large collection of obser- 
 vations that have been made on the minutiae of things in human bodies 
 in health and sickness; but likewise there are such changes and differ- 
 ences in these minutiae as no language can express: and when a man 
 has no other reason for what he does than the judgment he has formed 
 from such observations, it is impossible he can give you the one without 
 the other that is, he can never explain his reasons to you, unless h 
 could communicate to you that collection of observations of which hit 
 $kill is the product."
 
 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 93 
 
 the one hand, and the ardent but unripe lucubrations of 
 very young men. 
 
 It is said that facts are what we want, and every pe- 
 riodical is filled with papers by very young physicians 
 made up of practical facts. What is fact? we would 
 ask ; and are not many of our new facts little else than 
 the opinions of the writers about certain phenomena, the 
 reality, and assuredly the importance of which, is by no 
 means made out so strongly as the opinions about them 
 are stated? 1 In this intensely scientific age, we need 
 some wise heads to tell us what not to learn or to un- 
 learn, fully as much as what to learn. Let us by all 
 means avail ourselves of the unmatched advantages of 
 modern science, and of the discoveries which every day 
 is multiplying with a rapidity which confounds ; let us 
 convey into, and carry in our heads as much as we 
 safely can, of new knowledge from Chemistry, Statistics, 
 the Microscope, the Stethoscope, and all new helps and 
 methods ; but let us go on with the old serious diligence, 
 the experientia as well as the experimenta the forg- 
 ing and directing, and qualifying the mind as well as the 
 furnishing, informing, and what is called accomplishing 
 it. Let us, in the midst of all the wealth pouring in 
 from without, keep our senses and our understandings 
 well exercised on immediate work. Let us look with 
 our own eyes, and feel with our own fingers. 2 
 
 1 Louis, in the preface to the first edition of his Researches on 
 Phthisis, pays "Few persons are free from delusive mental tenden- 
 cies, especially in youth, interfering with true observation ; and I am 
 of opinion that, generally speaking, ice ought to place less reliance on 
 cases collected by very young men ; and, above all, not intrust the task 
 of accumulating facts to them exclusively." 
 
 2 We all know Cullen's pithy saying, that there are more false facts 
 than theories in medicine. In his Treatise on the Materia Afedica, 
 which was given to the world when its author was in his seventy-
 
 94 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 One natural consequence of the predominance in our 
 days of the merely scientific element is, that the elder 
 
 seventh year, we came upon the full statement of the many mistakes 
 and untruths which are drawii from "false experience." These he 
 iivides into eight classes : 
 
 1st, In respect to those supposed remedies, which, from their nature, 
 and their being placed at a distance from the human body, cannot be 
 supposed to have any action upon it. Such are charms, inodorous 
 amulets, sympathetic powders, etc. 
 
 2d, Another instance of false experience is with respect to the vir- 
 tues imputed to substances which, when taken into the body, pass 
 through it unchanged, such as mountain crystal, gems, and precious 
 stones, which formerly had a place in our dispensatories. 
 
 3d, Whenever to substances obviously inert, or such as have little 
 power of changing the human body, we find considerable effects im- 
 puted. Thus when the excellent Linna-us tells us he preserved him- 
 self from gout by eating every year plentifully of strawberries ! (Here 
 we suspect the Swede was wiser and righter than the Scot.) 
 
 4th, tVhen medicines are said to cure what we have no evidence 
 ever existed. As when Dr. Boerhaave says certain medicines correct 
 an atrabilis, a condition he nowhere proves the existence of. 
 
 The 5lh refers to solvents of the stone taken by the mouth,. to many 
 emmenagogues and diuretics. 
 
 The Gth, where effects that do really take place are imputed to medi- 
 cines employed, when they are due to the spontaneous operations of 
 the anlni.nl economy, or of nature, as we commonly sjteai ; and he in- 
 stances the vegetables mentioned in the Materia Medica as Vulnera- 
 ries. 
 
 The 1th and 8th are instances of false experience from mistakes con- 
 cerning tlie real nature of the disease treated, and of the drug em- 
 ployed. It is curious to us who are seventy years older, and it may 
 be wiser (in the main) to note how permanently true much of this still 
 is, and how oddly and significantly illustrative of the very fallacies 
 classified by himself, is the little that is not true. 
 
 Then follows what we had chiefly in view in this quotation. Dr. 
 Cullen, after stating that these false experiences of writers upon the 
 Materia Medica were mistakes of judgment, and not made under any 
 consciousness of falsehood, reprobates with much severity the manu- 
 facture tf facts in medicine, which have, for reasons of various kinds, 
 been obtruded on the public by persons aware of their being false, or 
 which, at K-ast, they have never proved to be true ; and he ends with 
 this remarkable statement, the moral of which is not peculiar to 1789 .
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 95 
 
 too much serves the younger. The young man teaches 
 and talks, and the old man learns and is mute. 1 This 
 is excellent when it is confined to the statement of dis- 
 covery, or the constantly evolving laws of knowledge, 
 or of matter. But the young men have now almost the 
 whole field to themselves. Chemistry and Physiology 
 have become, to all men above forty, impossible sciences ; 
 they dare not meddle with them ; and they keep back 
 from giving to the profession their own personal experi- 
 ence in matters of practice, from the feeling that much 
 of their science is out of date ; and the consequence is, 
 that, even in matters of pvactice, the young men are in 
 possession of the field. Fruit is pleasantest and every 
 way best when it is ripe ; and practical observations, to 
 be worth anything, must be more of a fruit than a blos- 
 som, and need not be plucked when green. 
 
 " Plutarch," says old Heberden, " has told us that the 
 life of a vestal virgin was divided into three portions : 
 in the first she learned the duties of her profession, in 
 the second she practised them, and in the third she 
 taught them to others." This he maintained, and we 
 
 o ' 
 
 cordially agree with him, was no bad model for the life 
 of a physician, and he followed it himself, as shown by 
 his motto prefixed to his Classical Commentaries, 
 Ftpcov KOL Ka/xi/eiv ov/cm SiW/xet/os, TOVTO TO j3i/3\t.o 
 
 " This leads me to observe, that a very fertile source of false facts 
 has been opened for some time past. There is in some young phy- 
 sicians the vanity of being the authors of observations, which are 
 often too hastily made, and sometimes perhaps entirely dressed in the 
 -.loset. We dare not at present be too particular, but the next age will 
 discern many instances of perhaps the direct falsehoods, and certainly 
 the many mistakes in fact, produced in the present age concerning the 
 powers and virtues of medicine." Treatise on the Materia Medica, 
 chap. ii. article iv. pp. 142-153. 
 i See Note C.
 
 96 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 George Jllius may explain to the admiring George 
 pater, the merits and arcana of his Prichett rifle, or his 
 Deane and Adams' revolver, any scientific improve- 
 ment the youngster may teach his " governor," but don't 
 let him go further, and take to giving him instructions 
 in the art of finding and bagging his game. This is ex- 
 actly where we are so apt to go wrong in medicine, as 
 well as in fowling. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that we despair of Medicine 
 gaining the full benefit of the general advance in knowl- 
 edge and usefulness. Far from it. TVe believe there 
 is more of exact diagnosis, of intelligent, effectual treat- 
 ment of disease, that there are wider views of princi- 
 ples director, ampler methods of discovery, at this 
 moment in Britain than at any former time ; and we 
 have no doubt that the augmentation is still proceeding, 
 and will defy all calculation. But we are likewise of 
 opinion, that the office of a physician, in the highest 
 sense, will become fully more difficult than before, will 
 require a greater compass and energy of mind, as work- 
 ing in a wider field, and using finer weapons ; and that 
 there never was more necessity for making every effort 
 to strengthen and clarify the judgment and tho senses 
 by inward discipline, and by outward exercise, than 
 when the importance and the multitude of the objects of 
 which they must be cognizant are so infinitely increased. 
 The middle propositions must be attended to, and filled 
 up as the particulars and the higher generalities crowd in. 
 
 It would be out of place in a paper so desultory as 
 the present, to enter at large upon the subjects now 
 hinted at the education of a physician the degree 
 of certainty in medicine its progress and prospects, 
 and the beneficial effects it may reasonably expect from
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 97 
 
 the advance of the purer sciences. But we are not more 
 firmly persuaded of anything than of the importance of 
 such an inquiry, made largely, liberally, and strictly, by 
 a man at once deep, truthful, knowing, and clear. How 
 are we to secure for the art of discerning, curing, and 
 preventing disease, the maximum of good and the min- 
 imum of mischief, in availing ourselves of the newest 
 discoveries in human knowledge ? 
 
 To any one wishing to look into this most interesting, 
 and at the present time, vital question, we would recom- 
 mend a paper by I^:-. Sellar, admirable equally in sub- 
 stance and in expression, entitled, " On the Signification 
 of Fact in Medicine, and on the hurtful effects of the 
 incautious use of such modern sources of fact as the 
 microscope, the stethoscope, chemical analysis, statistics, 
 etc. ; " it may be found in No. 177 of the Edinburgh 
 Medical and Surgical Journal. We merely give a sam- 
 ple or two, in which our readers will find, in better 
 words, much of what we have already asserted. " Med- 
 icine still is, and must continue for ages to be, an em- 
 pirico-rationalism" " A sober thinker can hardly ven- 
 ture to look forward to such an advanced state of chem- 
 ical rationalism as would be sufficient for pronouncing a 
 priori that sulphur would cure scabies, iodine goitre, 
 citric acid the scurvy, or carbonate of iron neuralgia." 
 " Chemistry promises to be of immediate service in the 
 practice of medicine, not so much by offering us a rational 
 chemical pathology, but by enlarging the sources from 
 which our empirical rules are to be drawn." Here we 
 have our "middle propositions." ''The great bulk of 
 practical medical kuovvledge is obviously the fruit of 
 individual minds, naturally gifted for excellence in medi- 
 cine ; " but the whole paper deserves serious continu- 
 7
 
 98 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 ous study. We would also, in spite of some ultraisms 
 in thought and language, the overflowings of a more 
 than ordinarily strong, and ardent, and honest mind, 
 recommend heartily the papers of Dr. Forbes, which 
 appeared at the close of the British and Foreign Medical 
 Review, in which he has, with what we cannot call else 
 or less than magnanimity, spoken so much wholesome, 
 though, it may be, unpalatable truth : and finally, we 
 would send every inquiring student who wishes to know 
 how to think and how to speak on this subject at once 
 with power, clearness, and compactness, and be both 
 witty and wise, to Dr. Latham's little three volumes on 
 Clinical Medicine. The first two lectures in the earliest 
 volume are " lion's marrow," the very pith of sense and 
 sound-mindeflness. We give a morsel " The medical 
 men of England do and will continue to keep pace with 
 the age in which they live, however rapidly ifc may ad- 
 vance. I wish to see physicians still instituted in the 
 same discipline, and still reared in fellowship and com- 
 munion with the wisest and best of men, and that not 
 for the sake of what is ornamental merely, and becoming 
 to their character, but because I am persuaded that that 
 discipline which renders the mind most capacious of wis- 
 dom and most capable of virtue, can hold the torch and 
 light the path to the sublimest discoveries in every sci- 
 ence. It was the same discipline which contributed to 
 form the minds of Newton and of Locke, of Harvey and 
 of Sydenham." 
 
 He makes the following beautiful remark in leading 
 his pupils into the wards of St. Bartholomew's : "In 
 entering this place, even this vast hospital, where there 
 is many a significant, many a wonderful thing, you shall 
 take me along with you, and I will be your guide. Bui
 
 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 99 
 
 it is by your own eyes, and your ears and your own 
 minds, and (/ may add) by your own hearts, that you 
 must observe, and learn, and profit. I can only point to 
 the objects, and say little else than ' See here and set 
 there: " 
 
 This is the great secret, the coming to close quarters 
 with your object, having immediate, not mediate cogni- 
 zance of the materials of study, apprehending first, and 
 then doing your best to comprehend. For, to adapt 
 Bacon's illustration, which no one need ever weary oi 
 giving or receiving, a good practical physician is more 
 akin to the working-bee than to the spider or the ant. 
 Instead of spinning, like the schoolmen of old, endless 
 webs of speculation out of their own bowels, in. which 
 they were themselves afterwards as frequently caught 
 and destroyed as any one else, or hoarding up, grain af- 
 ter grain, the knowledge of other men, and thus becom 
 ing " a very dungeon of learning," in which (ffibernice) 
 they lose at once themselves and their aim they should 
 rather be like the brisk and public-hearted bee, who, by 
 divine instinct, her own industry, and the accuracy oi 
 her instrument, gathers honey from all flowers. " For- 
 mica colligit et utitur, ut faciunt empirici ; aranea ex se 
 fila eclucit ueque a particularibus materiam petit ; apis 
 denique cseteris se mrlius gent, hsec indigesta a floribu* 
 mella colligit, delude in viscerum cellulas concocta ma 
 turat, iisdern tandem insudat donee ad integram perfeq 
 tionem perduxerit." 
 
 We had intended giving some account of the bear- 
 ing that the general enlightenment of the community has 
 upon Medicine, and especially of the value of the labor? 
 of such men as Dr. Andrew Combe, Dr. Henry Mar 
 shall, Sir James Clark, and others, in the collateral sub
 
 100 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 jects leading into, and auxiliary to, pure Medicine, 
 but we have no space to do them any measures of justice. 
 The full importance, and the full possibility of the pre- 
 vention of disease in all its manifold, civil, moral, and 
 personal bearings, is not yet by any means adequately 
 acknowledged ; there are few things oftener said, or less 
 icarched into, than that prevention is better than cure. 
 
 Let not our young and eager doctors be scandalized 
 at our views as to the comparative uncertainty of medi- 
 cine as a science : such has been the opinion of the wis- 
 est and most successful masters of the craft. Radcliffe 
 used to say, that " when young, he had fifty remedies 
 for every disease ; and when old, one remedy for fifty 
 diseases." Dr. James Gregory said, " Young men kill 
 their patients ; old men let them die." Gaubius says, 
 " Equidem candide dicam, plura me indies, dum in artis 
 usu versor, dediscere quam discere, et in crescente aetate, 
 minui potius quam augeri, scientiam," meaning by "sci- 
 entia" an abstract systematic knowledge. And Bordeu 
 gives as the remark of an old physician, " J'etois dogma- 
 tique a vingt aus, observateur a trente, a quarante je f us 
 empirique ; je n'ai point de systeme a cinquante." And 
 he adds, in reference to how far a medical man must 
 personally know the sciences that contributed to his art, 
 " Jphicrates, the Athenian general, was hard pressed 
 by an orator before the people, to say what he was, to 
 be so proud : ' Are you a soldier, a captain, an engi- 
 neer : a spy, a pioneer, a sapper, a miner ? ' ' No,' says 
 Iphicrates, ' I am none of these, but I command them 
 all.' So if one asks me, Are you an empiric, a dogma- 
 tist, an observer, an anatomist, a chemist, a microscopist ? 
 I answer,- No, but I am captain of them all." 
 
 And to conclude these desultory notes in the opening
 
 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 101 
 
 words of the Historia Vita et Mortis, " Speramus 
 enim et cupimus futurum, ut id plurimorum bono fiat ; 
 atque ut rnedici nobiliores animos nonnihil erigant, 
 neque toti sint in curarum sordibus, neque solum pro 
 necessitate honorentur, sed fiant demum omnipotentice et 
 dementia divince administri" " Etsi enim," as he pa- 
 thetically adds, " nos Christian! ad terram promissionis 
 perpetuo aspiremus et anhelemus ; tamen interim itine- 
 rantibus nobis, in hac mundi eremo, etiam calceos istos 
 et tegmina (corporis scilicet nostri fragilis) quam mini- 
 mum atteri, erit signuui divini favoris." 1 
 
 We have left ourselves no space to notice Pr. Green- 
 hill's collected edition of Sydenham's Latin works. It 
 is everything that the best sholarship, accuracy,, and 
 judgment could make it. We regret we cannot say so 
 much for Dr. R. G. Latham's translation and Life. The 
 first is inferior as a whole to Swan's, and in parts to 
 Pechey's and Wallis's : and the Life, which might have 
 contained so much that is new, valuable, and entertain- 
 ing, is treated with a curious infelicity and clumsiness, 
 that is altogether one of the oddest, most gauche and 
 limping bits of composition we ever remember having 
 met with ; and adds another to the many instances to 
 which Bishop Lowth and Cobbett are exceptions, of a 
 grammarian writing, if not ungrammatically, at least 
 
 l " For it is our earnest hope and desire, that the efficacy of medi- 
 cine may be infinitely increased, and that physicians may bear them- 
 selves more erect and nobly, and not be wholly taken up with sordid 
 gains and cares, not be honored from necessity alone, but may at 
 length become the executors of Divine omnipotence and mercy ; for 
 though we who are Christians do without ceasing long for, and pant 
 after, the land of promise, we cannot fail to regard it as a token of the 
 favor of God, when, as we travel through this wilderness of the world, 
 these shoes and garments of our frail bodies are rendered, as little as 
 may be, subject to decay."
 
 102 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 without elegance, and occasionally without clearness. 
 It is one thing to know, and often quite another to do, 
 the right thing. 
 
 We cannot close these notices of Sydenham without 
 thanking Dr. Latham for printing in the Appendix to 
 his second volume, the manuscript preserved in the pub- 
 lic library of the University of Cambridge, and referred 
 to in the Biographia Britannica, under Sydenham's 
 name. Dr. Latham states that it is in a more modern 
 handwriting than that of the author's time, and is headed 
 Theologia JRationalis, by Dr. Thomas Sydenham. This 
 is all that is known, but we think it bears strong inter- 
 nal evidence of being authentic. The following note 
 upon it, by a kind friend, 1 who is well able to judge, 
 gives a just estimate of this remarkable relic: 
 
 " I have looked with much interest over the fragment 
 you point out in Sydeuham's works. I think it is quite 
 misnamed. It should be Ethica Rationalis, or Naturalis, 
 since its avowed aim is not to examine closely the foun- 
 dations of natural theology, but rather ' the question is, 
 how far the light of Nature, if closely adverted to, may 
 be extended toward the making of good men' This 
 question is closely pursued throughout, and leads to the 
 result that there is an order in man's nature, which leads 
 lo a threefold set of obligations, according to the com- 
 jaoh division, towards God, society, and one's-self. 
 This is the plan according to which the fragment is 
 blocked out. The perfections and providence of God are 
 discussed solely as laying a foundation for man's duties ; 
 and these, adoration, prayer, submission, confession 
 of sin are summed up in pages 312, 313. Next fol 
 1 Rev. John Cairns, D. D.
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 103 
 
 ow the duties to society, very speedily despatched ; and 
 those to self discussed more at length, such as temper- 
 nee, truth, modesty, prudent enjoyment in subservience 
 to reason. With the same ethical aim the question of 
 immortality is discussed, solely as a help to virtue and 
 to the predominance of reason. In arguing this from 
 mmateriality, the author is entangled in the usual diffi- 
 Cilty about the souls of the brutes, but escapes by the 
 Cartesian denial of their true thinking power ; and more 
 satisfactorily by urging the sentimental argument from 
 men's desire of immortality, and the more strictly moral 
 one, from unequal retribution. All this, I think, bears 
 out the view I have taken. There is not, perhaps, so 
 much originality in the views of the author as general 
 soundness and loftiness of moral tone, with that fine 
 power of illustration which you have noticed. I agree 
 with you in seeing much of the spirit both of Locke and 
 Butler : of Locke, in the spirit of observation and geni- 
 ality ; of Butler, in the clear utterances as to the su- 
 premacy of reason, and the necessity of living according 
 to our true nature, not to speak of other agreements in 
 detail. I think the paper well deserves a cordial recog- 
 nition, though it hardly reaches out, perhaps in any one 
 direction, beyond the orthodox ethics of the seventeenth 
 century." 
 
 We give at random some extracts from the Theologia 
 Rationalis : " Nor indeed can I entertain any thoughts 
 more derogatory from the majesty of this Divine Being, 
 than not supposing him to be a free agent; but having 
 }nce put all his works out of his own hands, to be con- 
 cluded within the limits of his own establishm' hath 
 determined irrational beings to act in some uniform 
 course, suitable to the good of themselves and tho
 
 104 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 whole. And tho' he hath set up certain lights in intel- 
 lectual natures, wh ch may direct them to pursue ends 
 suitable to their natures, yet having given these a lib- 
 erty of will incident to the very nature of reasonable 
 beings, he retains his power of inclining or not inclin- 
 ing such intellectual natures to pursue courses leading 
 to their welfare." 
 
 " Also, from the same consideration (the excellence 
 of my mind above my body) it is that I am neither to 
 thinke, speake, or act anything that is indecorous or dis- 
 gracefull to this Divine inmate, whose excellency above 
 my body Nature hath tacitly pointed out, by impressing 
 upon me a verecundia, or being ashamed of many ac- 
 tions of my body, w ch therefore I hide from those of my 
 own species. But now, forasmuch as I consist likewise 
 of a body w ch is submitted to the same conditions with 
 other animals, of being nourished and propagating my 
 kind, and, likewise, w ch wants many other conveniences 
 of clothing, housing, and the like, which their nature re- 
 quires not ; all those likewise are to be respected by me, 
 according to my several wants ; but still with a subser- 
 vience to my reason, which is my superior part, and acts 
 flowing from the same, my chiefest business ; as an em- 
 bassador who is sent into a foreign country, is not sent 
 to eat and to drink, tho' he is enforced to do both." 
 
 " When I consider that the infinite Governour of the 
 universe hath so made me, that in my intellect I have 
 some small glympses of his being, whilst I cann't but ap- 
 prehend that immensity of power and wisdom w ch is in 
 him, and doth appear in whatsoever I see, and this I 
 must apprehend, even if I endeavour not to do it, it being 
 closely riveted, and as it were co-essential to my nature ; 
 or if I have gotten of it by hearsay onely, it being so
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 105 
 
 fitted to my nature, that I must needs believe it, w ch two 
 make up the same thing. Now how can I think that 
 this Divine Being, that hath admitted me to this little 
 acquaintance w th him, will let the laying down of my 
 body perfectly break off this acquaintance, and not 
 rather that the throwing of this load of corruption will 
 put my soul into a condition more suitable to its own 
 nature, it being much more difficult to think how such a 
 noble substance as the soul should be united to the body, 
 than how it should subsist separately from it. But add 
 to this, that I have not only faculties of knowing this 
 Divine Being, but in complyance with him, I have 
 adored him with all the attention I could screw up my 
 heavy mind unto, and have endeavoured to yield obedi- 
 ence to those lawes w ch he hath written upon my nat- 
 ure ; that I who have done this (supposing that I have 
 done it), should extinguish when my body dies, is yet 
 more unlikely. Moreover I consider that this Maker 
 of the universe hath brought his ends so together, that 
 he hath implanted no affections upon the meanest ani- 
 mal, but hath made objects to answer them ; as he that 
 hath made the eye hath made colours, and he that hath 
 made the organs of hearing hath likewise made sounds, 
 and so of an infinite number of other affections, not only 
 in animals, but even in those natures inferior to them 
 all, w ch have objects suited to them ; and if they had 
 not, there would be a flaw even in the constitution of the 
 universe, w ch can't be charged upon the infinitely wise 
 Creator. But now that there should be found in man- 
 kind a certain appetite or reaching out after a future hap- 
 piness, and that there should be no such thing to answer 
 to it, but that this cheat should be put upon the rational 
 part of man, w ch is the highest nature in the globe where 
 vfQ live, is to me very improbable."
 
 106 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 We subjoin, with Mr. Black's kind permission, a por- 
 tion pf the Life of Sydenham, iu the last edition of his 
 admirable Encyclopaedia ; it contains, I believe, all the 
 old and some new facts : 
 
 " SYDENHAM, THOMAS the greatest name in Eng- 
 lish practical medicine was born in 1624 at Winford 
 Eagle, Dorsetshire, where his father, William Syden- 
 ham, had a fine estate. He was a commoner of Mag- 
 dalen Hall, Oxford, 1642, but was obliged to leave that 
 city when it became a royal garrison, not having taken 
 up arms for the king, as the students of those days gen- 
 erally did. In 1649, after the garrison delivered up 
 Oxford to the Parliamentary forces, he returned to 
 Magdalen Hall, and was created Bachelor of Physic on 
 the Pembrokean creation, when Lord Pembroke became 
 Chancellor of the University, and honorary degrees 
 were conferred. This was in April 1648. He had not 
 previously taken any degree in arts. He then, on sub- 
 mitting to the authority of the visitors appointed by the 
 Parliament, was made by them (at the intercession of a 
 relative) Fellow of All Souls, in the room of one of the 
 many ejected Royalists. He continued for some years 
 earnestly prosecuting his profession, and left Oxford 
 without taking any other degree. He was also, accord- 
 ing to his own account, in a letter to Dr. Gould, fellow- 
 commoner of Wadham College in the year Oxford sur- 
 rendered. It is not easy to understand why he went to 
 Wadham, as he was not a fellow but a fellow-commoner 
 
 equivalent to a gentleman-commoner in Cambridge 
 
 unless it was that, on returning to Magdalen Hall, 
 he found himself, as a Parliamentarian, more at home 
 in Wadham where the then head was John Wilkins, 
 Cromwell's brother-in-law a man of genius and of a
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 107 
 
 keen scientific spirit, and afterwards and still famous as 
 Bishop of Chester one of the founders of the Royal 
 Society, which first met at Oxford ; and author, among 
 other works, of a discourse on a Universal Language 
 and of an Inquiry as to the best Way of Travelling to the 
 Moon ; a man of rare parts and worth, and of a liberal- 
 ity in religion and science then still rarer, being, accord- 
 ing to Anthony Wood, an " excellent mathematician and 
 experimentist, and one as well seen in the new philoso- 
 phy as any of his time ; such a man would be sure to 
 cordialize with Sydenham, who was of the Baconian or 
 genuine Empiric school ; and who, in the ' new philos- 
 ophy,' saw the day-spring of all true scientific progress. 
 It is not clear when Sydenham settled in London, or 
 more properly speaking in Westminster ; it certainly 
 was before 1661. In 1663 he was admitted a licentiate 
 of the College of Physicians of London, he never was a 
 fellow ; his degree of doctor of medicine was taken at 
 Cambridge in 1676, long after he was in full practice, 
 his college being Pembroke ; his diploma is signed by 
 Isaac Barrow. His reason probably for taking a Cam- 
 bridge degree may have been that his eldest son was a 
 pensioner at that college. 
 
 " Sydenham's elder brother, William, was a distin- 
 guished soldier and politician during the Commonwealth. 
 This, along with his own likings, and his love of the 
 new philosophy, prevented him during the reigns of the 
 second Charles and James, from enjoying court favour. 
 It has often been doubted whether Sydenham actually 
 served in the army of the Parliament ; but from an 
 anecdote known generally as Dr. Lettsom's, but' which 
 appears first in a curious old controversial book by Dr. 
 Andrew Brown, the Vindicatory Schedule, published
 
 108 LOCKE AND SYDEXH All- 
 
 two years after Sydenham's death, it is made quite cer- 
 tain that he did. 
 
 " Before settling in London he seems, on the authority 
 of Desault, to have visited Montpellier, and to have at- 
 tended the lectures of the famous Barbeyrac. After 
 this he devoted himself to his profession, and became 
 the greatest physician of his time, in spite of the court, 
 and of the College of Physicians ; by one of whose fel- 
 lows Lister he was called ' a miserable quack.' He 
 suffered for many of the later years of his life from 
 the gout, his description of which has become classical, 
 and died in his house, Pail-Mall or as he spells it, 
 Pell-Mell in 1689. He lies buried in St. James's, 
 Westminster, with the following noble because trtie in- 
 scription : ' Prope hunc locum sepultus est Tliomas 
 Sydenham, medicus in omne aevum, nobilis, natus erat 
 A. D. 1624: vixit annos 65.' His works, which be- 
 came rapidly popular during his lifetime, and to an 
 extraordinary extent soon after his death there were 
 upwards of twenty-five editions in less than a hundred 
 years consist chiefly of occasional pieces, extorted 
 from him by his friends, and often in the form of let- 
 ters ; none of them are formal treatises, and all are 
 plainly the result of his own immediate reflection and 
 experience. One is greatly struck at the place he oc- 
 cupies in the writings of all the great medical authors 
 at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the 
 eighteenth centuries. Morton, Willis, Boerhaave, Gau- 
 bius, Bordeu, etc., always speak of him as second in 
 sagacity to ' the divine Hippocrates ' alone. Boerhaave 
 never mentioned him in his class without lifting his hat, 
 and called him Anglice lumen, artis Phoebum, veram Hip- 
 pocratici viri speciem. His simple, manly views of the
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 109 
 
 nature and means of medicine as an art seem to hate 
 come upon the profession like revelations ; it was as if 
 the men in Plato's cavern, who had been all their lives 
 with their backs to the light, studying their own shad- 
 ows, had suddenly turned round and gazed on the broad 
 face of the outer world, lying in sunshine before them. 
 
 "All Sydenham's works are in Latin, and though 
 from his education and tastes, and the habits of his time, 
 and also from the composition of the Processus Integri 
 brief notes left by him for his sons' use, and published 
 after his death there is little doubt he could have 
 written them in that tongue, there seems every likeli- 
 hood that he was assisted in doing so by his friends Drs 
 Mapletoft and Havers. There are three English trans- 
 lations one by Dr. Pechey, another by Dr. Swan, to 
 which is prefixed a life by Samuel Johnson, among his 
 earliest performances, and published by Cave, and the 
 last, the Sydenham Society's edition, by Dr. Latham." 
 
 The following hitherto unpublished letters I had the 
 good fortune to find in the British Museum. The first 
 must have been written two months later than the one 
 quoted at page 50, and relsrs to the same subjects : 
 
 LETTEK FROM JOHN LOCKE TO DR. MAPLETOFT. 
 
 Paris, 9f Aug. 1677. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I had noe sooner don my letter on the other 
 side, but I found it answered by yours of July 25, and though 
 it hath satisfied me that you are very well, and given me 
 new proofs that you are very much my friend, yet it hath 
 put new doubts into me, and methinkes I see you going to 
 loose yourself. I will say noe worse of it, not knowing how 
 far the matter is gon, else I would aske you whether the
 
 110 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 men, young, old, or middle aged, each of which is sure to 
 meet you with the homes of a dilemma. I see you are, 
 whatever you think, hot upon the scent.; and if you have 
 noething else to defend you, but those maxims you build on, 
 I feare the chase will lead you where yourself will be caught. 
 For be as grave and steady as you please, resolve as much 
 as you will, never to goe out of your way or pace, for never 
 an hey trony nony whatsoever, you are not one jot the safer 
 for all this steadiness. For, believe it, sir, this sorte of 
 game having a designe to be caught, will hunt just at the 
 pursuer's rate, and will goe no further before them than will 
 just serve to make you follow ; and let me assure you upon 
 as good authority as honest Tom Bagnall's that viuus vidcns- 
 que pereo, is the lamentable ditty of many an honest gentle- 
 man. But if you or the Fates (for the poor Fates are still 
 to be accused in the case), if your mettle be up, and as hard 
 as Sir Fr. Drake, you will shoot the desperate gulph ; yet 
 consider that though the riches of Peru lie that way, how 
 will you can endure the warme navigation of the Mare de 
 Zur, which all travellers assure us is nicknamed pacificum. 
 
 But hold, I goe too far. All this, perhaps, notwithstand- 
 ing your ancient good principles, will be heresie to you by 
 that time it comes to England, and therefore, I conjure you 
 by our friendship to burne this as soon as you have read it, 
 that it may never rise up in judgment against me. 
 
 I see one is never sure of one's-self, and the time may 
 come when I may resigne myself to the empire of the soft 
 sex, and abominate myself for these miserable errors. How- 
 ever, as the matter now stands, I have discharged my con- 
 science, and pray do not let me suffer-for it. For I know 
 your lovers are a sort of people that are bound to sacrifice 
 everything to your mistresses. But to be serious with you, 
 if your heart does hang that way, I wish you good luck. 
 May Hymen be as kinde to you as ever he was to anybody, 
 and then, I am sure, you will be much happier than any for- 
 lorne batchelor can be. If it be like to be, continue your
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. Ill 
 
 care of my interest in the case (to get him his chair in Gres 
 ham), and remember it is for one that knows how to value 
 the quiet and retirement you are going to quit. You have 
 no more to do for me than lovers use to doe upon their own 
 account, viz., keepe the matter as secret and private as you 
 can, and then when it is ripe and resolved, give me but no- 
 tice and I shall quickly be with you, for it is by your direc- 
 tions I shall better governe my motives than by the flights 
 of thrushes and fieldfares. 
 
 Some remains of my cough, and something like a charge 
 is fallen into my hands lately here, will, if noething else 
 happen, keepe me out probably longer than the time you 
 mention. But not knowing whether the aire of France will 
 ever quite remove my old companion or noe, I shall neglect 
 that uncertainty upon the consideration of soe comfortable 
 an importance; and for the other affaire I have here, if you 
 please to let me hear from you sometimes how matters are 
 like to goe, I shall be able to order that enough to come at 
 the time you shall thinke seasonable. Whatever happens, 
 I wish you all the happiness of one or t' other condition. 
 I am perfectly, dear Sir, your most humble and obedient 
 servant. 
 
 To DK. MAPLETOFT, at Gresliam College. 
 
 In the same MS. volume in which I found this letter, 
 is a case-book of Locke's in his own neat hand, written 
 in Latin (often slovenly and doggish enough), and which 
 shows, if there were any further need, that he was in 
 active practice in 1667. The title in the Museum yol- 
 ume is " Original Medical Papers by John Locke, pre- 
 sented by Wm. Seward, Esq. ; " and its contents are 
 
 1. Hy drops. 
 
 2. Rheumatismus. 
 
 3. Hydrops. 
 
 4. Febris Inflammatoria.
 
 112 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 To us now it seems curious to think of the author of 
 the Essay on Human Understanding recording all the 
 aches and doses, and minute miseries of an ancilla culi- 
 naria virgo, and to find that after a long and anxious 
 case he was turned 06*, when, as he says, his impatient 
 patient olio advocato medico erumpsit (!) 
 
 The copy of a Letter of DR. THO. SYDENHAM to DR. GOULD, 
 the original of which was communicated to me by DR. MEAD, 
 Octob. 1, 1743. 
 
 SIR, I conceive that the Salivation, though raised by 
 Mercury, in your variolous Patient doeth noe more centra- 
 indicate the giving of Paregoricke, than if the same had 
 come on of its own accord in a confluent Pox ; and therefore 
 it will be convenient for you to give him every night such a 
 quieting medicine as this : B Hy Cerasor nigrorum ii, and 
 gut xiiii : Syr de Mecon ^ ss - But if it shall hap- 
 pen, y* the Mercury shall at any time exert its operation by 
 stooles, you may repeat it oftener as there should be occa- 
 sion, after the same manner as it ought to be don. In the 
 first Days of Mercuriall Unctions where when Diarrhoea 
 comes on, there is noe course so proper as to turn the opera- 
 tion of the Mercury upwards, and thereby cause a laudable 
 salivation as y" giving of Laudanum till the Looseness is 
 stopt. 
 
 As to what you are pleassed to mention concerning success, 
 which yourself and others have had in the trying of ray 
 Processus, I can only say this, that I have bin very careful 
 to write nothing but what was the product of careful obser- 
 vation, soe when the scandall of my person shall be layd 
 aside in my grave, it will appear that I neither suffered my- 
 selfe to be deceived by indulging to idle speculations, nor 
 have deceived others by obtruding anything to them but 
 downright matter of fact. Be pleased to doe me the favour 
 to give my humble service to Mr. Vice- Chancellor your 
 warden, whose father, Bp. of Bristoll, was my intimate
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 113 
 
 friend and countryman. I myself was once a fellow-com- 
 moner of your house (Wadham College, Oxford), but how 
 long since I would be glad to know from you, as I remember 
 it was in the year Oxford surrendered, though I had one of 
 Magdalen Hall some time before. 
 
 THOMAS SYDENHAM. 
 PELL MELL, Deer. 10, 1667. 
 
 There is interesting matter in this letter besides its 
 immediate subjects, and some things, I rather think, un- 
 known before of Sydenham's College life. It is the only 
 printed bit of English by its author, except a letter to 
 the Honourable Robert Boyle, quoted in Latham's Life. 
 
 " The real physician is the one who cures : the obser- 
 vation, which does not teach the art of healing, is not 
 that of a physician, it is that of a naturalist." Brous- 
 sais. 
 
 NOTE A. P. 45. 
 
 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 THE reader, we are sure, will not be impatient of the following ex- 
 tracts from Lord Grenville's Tract, entitled Oxford and Locke, already 
 mentioned. It is now rare, and is not likely to be ever reprinted sep- 
 arately. It would not be easy to imagine anything more thoroughly or 
 more exquisitely done than this tract ; it is of itself ample evidence of 
 the accuracy of Lord Brougham's well-known application to its author 
 of Cicero's words : " Erant in eo plurimce literas, nee ece vulgares sed 
 interiores qucedam et reconditce, divina memoria, summa rerborum 
 gravitas et elegantia, atque hcec omnla vitce decorabut diynitas et integ- 
 ritas. Quantum pond us in verbis! Quam nlhil non consideratum, exi- 
 bat ex ore ! Sileamus de illo ni 7ugeamus dolorem." 
 
 Our extracts are from the First Chapter, " Of Locke's Medical 
 Studies:" 
 
 8
 
 114 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 " In the printed Life of Locke, commonly prefixed to his works, we 
 are told that he applied himself at the university with great diligence 
 to the study of medicine, 'not with any design of practising as a 
 physician, but principally for the benefit of his own constitution, which 
 was but weak.' The self-taught scholar, says the Italian proverb, has 
 an ignorant master; and the patient who prescribes for himself, has 
 not often, I believe, a very wise physician. No such purpose is as- 
 cribed to Locke by Le Clerc, from whom our knowledge of his private 
 history is principally derived. Nor can we believe that such a man 
 chose for himself in youth that large and difficult study, with no view 
 to the good of others, but meaning it to begin and end only with the 
 care of his own health. 
 
 " From the very first dawn of reviving letters to the present mo- 
 ment, there never has been a period in this country, when the great 
 masters of medicine among us have not made manifest the happy in- 
 fluence of that pursuit on the cultivation of all the other branches of 
 philosophy. And accordingly we find, that while Locke was still 
 proceeding, as it is termed, in the academical course of that noble sci- 
 ence, he was already occupied in laying the foundations of the Essay 
 on the Human Understanding, which, as we learu from Le Clerc, 
 was commenced in 1670. 
 
 " Mr. Stewart thinks it matter of praise to Locke, that in that work 
 'not a single passage,' he says, 'occurs, savouring of the Anatomical 
 Theatre, or of the Chemical Laboratory.' This assertion is not to be 
 too literally taken. Certainly no trace of professional pedantry is to 
 be found in that simple and forcible writer. He had looked abroad 
 into all the knowledge of his time, and in his unceasing endeavors to 
 make his propositions and his proofs intelligible and perspicuous to 
 all. he delighted to appeal to every topic of most familiar observation. 
 Among these some reference to medical science could scarcely have 
 been avoided. Nor has it been entirely so. Mr. Stewart himself has 
 elsewhere noticed Locke's 'homely' illustration of the nature of sec- 
 ondary qualities, by the operation of manna on the human body. A 
 more pleasing example of medical allusion is to be found in one of the 
 many passages where Locke points out to us how often men whose 
 opinions substantially agree, are heard wrangling about the names and 
 watchwords of parties and sects, to which they respectively attach 
 quite different significations. He tells us of a meeting of physicians, 
 at which he himself was present. These ingenious and learned men 
 debated long, he says, ' whether any liquor passed through the fila- 
 ments of the nerves,' until it appeared, on mutual explanation, that 
 they all admitted the passage of some fluid and subtle matter through 
 those channels, and had been disputing only whether or not it should
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 115 
 
 be called a liquor, ' which, when considered, they thought not worth 
 contending about.' 
 
 " In his Letters on Toleration, and in his Essay on the Conduct of 
 the Understanding, his two most valuable, because most practical 
 works, he indulges much more freely in such allusions. It is fre- 
 quently by their aid that, in the first of those admirable productions, 
 he ridicules his unequal adversary's project of enforcing universal con 
 formity by moderate and lenient persecution. In one place he com- 
 pares him to a surgeon using his knife on the sick and sound alike, on 
 bad subjects and on good, without their consent, but, as he assures 
 them, always solely for their own advantage ; and in another place to 
 an empiric, prescribing, says Locke, his ''hiera picra' (HIS HOLT 
 BiTTEits), to be taken in such doses only as shall be sufficient for the 
 cure, without once inquiring in what quantities of that poisonous drug 
 such sufficiency is at all likely to be found. Again, we find him illus- 
 trating in a similar way the proper conduct to be pursued by a mind 
 devoting itself in any case to a genuine search for truth. A diligent 
 and sincere, a close and unbiased examination, he powerfully insists 
 upon as ' the surest and safest ' method for that purpose. Would not 
 this, he asks, be the conduct of a student in medicine wishing to ac- 
 quire just notions of that science, 'or of the doctrines of Hippocrates, 
 or any other book in which he conceived the whole art of physic to be 
 infallibly contained ?' These, and many other passages of a like de- 
 scription, are beauties, surely, not blemishes, in Locke's powerful com- 
 position and certainlv in no decree less valuable, for bearing some 
 tincture of the current in which that great man's thoughts and studies 
 had been so long carried forward." 
 
 This Hiera Picra still survives under the name of Hickery Pickery; 
 and appears in the London Pharmacopeia of 1650, as thus com- 
 posed : 
 
 R Cinnamon. 
 
 Lignum aloes. 
 Asarum root. 
 Spikenard. 
 Mastick. 
 
 Saffron, aa. 3vj. 
 Aloes (unwashed) 3xijss. 
 Clarified honey, Ibiv. 3 iij. 
 Mix. Ft. elect, sec. art.
 
 116 LOCKE AND SYDEXHAM. 
 
 NOTE B. P. 82. 
 
 THE WISDOM OF DOING NOTHING. 
 
 The reader will mark the coincidence of thought, and even txpres- 
 sion, between Locke and his friend: 
 
 "I commend very much the discretion of Mrs. Furley, t!-at she 
 would not give him precipitates 1. Because physick is not to be 
 given to children upon every little disorder. 2. Physick for the worms 
 is not to be given upon every bare suspicion that there may be worms. 
 3. If it were evident that he had worms, such dangerous medicines 
 are not to be given till after the use of other and more gentle and safe 
 remedys. If he continue still dull and melancholy, the best way is to' 
 have him abroad to walke with you every day in the air ; that, I 
 believe, may set him right without any physic, at least if it should 
 not, 't is not fit to give him remedys till one has well examined what 
 is the distemper, unless you think (as is usually doune), that at all 
 hazard something is to be given ; a way, I confess, I could never 
 thinke reasonable, i', being better in my opinion to doe no tkit-j, than 
 to doe amiss." Locke to Furley in Forster. 
 
 NOTE C. P. 95. 
 
 THE ELDER SERVING THE YOUNGER. 
 
 BORDEU puts this Avell, in his candid, lively, and shrewd wny. The 
 whole passage is full of his peculiar humor and sense. Boioeu was 
 in many respects a sort of French Sydenham, like and uiilik*, as a 
 Frenchman is like and unlike an Englishman. He was himi>lf, to 
 use his own phrase, one " des m<klecins les plus senses." It is no ijood 
 sign of our medical tastes that he is so little known. 
 
 " Les Serane, pere et fils, e"toient mddecins de Phopital de Montpel 
 lier. Le fils e'toit un the'oricien Idger, qui savoit par coeur et qui redi- 
 soit continuellement tous les dccamens de 1'inflammation, comme ces 
 enfans qui vous re'petent sans cesse et avec des airs plus ou moins ni- 
 ais, La cigale ayant cliante tout I'ete, etc., Mattre corbeausur un arbre 
 perche, etc. Serane pere e'toit un bon homme qui avoit & instruit par 
 de giands maitres. II avoit appris ii trailer les fluxions de poitrine 
 avec 1'eme'tique ; il le donnoit pour le moins tous les deux jours, avec 
 ou sans 1'addition de deux onces de manne. C'etoit son grand cheval 
 de bataille. Je le lui ai vu lacher plus de mille fois, et partout et pour 
 tout. Le fils se proposa de convertir le pere et ie le mettre a la mode ;
 
 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 117 
 
 c'est-a-dire, lui faire craindre la phlogose, Yere'tisme, les de"chirures des 
 petits vaisseaux. Le cher pere tomba dans une espece d' indecision 
 singuliere: il ne savoit oil donner de la tete. II tenoit pourtant ferme 
 contri la saigne'e; inais lorsqu'il etoit aupres d'un malade, il munnu- 
 roit ot s'en alloit sans rien ordonner. Jc 1'ai vu a plusieurs reprises, 
 apostroplier son fils avec vivacite" et lui crier, lorsqu'il auroit voulu 
 donner reme'lique, Men Jil, m'abes yastat ! (Mon Jils, vous m'avez 
 gate!) Jainais cette scene singuliere ne sortira de ma memoire. Je 
 lui ai biiju de 1'obligation, et les malades de 1'liopital lui avoient aussi 
 beaucoup. Us guerissoient sans e"tre presque saigne's, parce que le vieux 
 Serane, n'aimoit pas la saigntfe : et sans prendre l'(;me'tique parce que 
 le jeune Serane avoit prouve' a sou pere que ce remede augmente 1'ia- 
 flaminatiou. Les malades guerissoient, et j'en faisois mon profit. J'en 
 concluois que les saignt 5 ss que Ssrane le fils multiplioit lorsqu'il etoit 
 seul, etoient tout au nioins aussi inutiles que 1'emctique re'ite're' auquel 
 Serane le pere etoit trop attache. D'apres cette aventure (jointe a 
 celle que je viens de rapporter, et ii plusieurs autres de la meme espece), 
 je cms voir bien sensiblement, et je me crois aujourd'hui en droit de 
 publier, qu'on multiplie trop les remedes et que les meilleurs de- 
 viennent perfides a force de les presser. Cette profusion de medicamens 
 rend la maladie m^connoissable, et forme un obstacle sensible-a la 
 gue'rison. La f ureur de trailer les maladies en faisant prendre drogues 
 sur drogues ayant gagn^ les tetes ordinaire?, les mt ! decius sont au- 
 jourd'hui plus n</cessaires pour les empecher et les de'fendre, que pour 
 les ordouner. Les pratiques nationales, les observations des mddecina 
 les plus sense':?, se ressentent plus ou moins du penchant invincible 
 qu'ont les hommes a donner la preference 4 de certaines id^es, sur 
 d'autres, tout aussi bien fonde'es que celles qu'ils preferent. Je le d^- 
 clare sans passion, et avec la modestie a laquelle mes foibles connois 
 sauces me condamnent ; lorsque je regarde derriere moi, j'ai hont 
 d'avoir taut insiste", tantot sur les saignees, tantot sur les purgatifs et 
 les e'metiques. Tons les axiomes rappek ! s ci-dessus, et dont on abuse 
 tous les jours, sont detruits par de beaucoup plus vrais, et malheureuse- 
 meiit trop peu connus. II me semble entendre crier la Nature : ' Ne 
 vous pressez point ; laissez-moi faire ; vos drogues ne gudrissent 
 point, surtout lorsque vous les entassez dans le corps des malades; c'est 
 moi seule qui gueris. Les momens qui vous paroissent les plus ora- 
 geux sont ceux oil je me sauve le mieux, si vous ne m'avez pas 6te" 
 mes forces. II vaut mieux que vous m'abandonniez toute la besogne 
 que d'essayer des remedes douteux.' 
 
 "Un hasard heureux commen9a a mod^rer en moi le brulant d^sir 
 d'instrumenter, ou tie faire voir aux assistans ^bahis et aux malades 
 eux-ruemes, la cause de la maladie dans un grand etalage de palettes
 
 118 LOCKE AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 et de bassins. J'e*tois fort jeune encore, et le quatrieme m<5decin d'un 
 malade attaque de la tievre, de la douleur de cot^ et du crachement de 
 sang ; je n'avois point d'avis ii donner. Vja. des trois consultans pro- 
 posa une troisieme saigne'e (c'etoit le troisieme jour de la maladie); le 
 second proposa Te'me'tique combine avec un purgatif ; et le troisieme, 
 un ve'sicatoire aux jambes. Le de'bat ne fut pas petit, et personne ne 
 voulut ce"der. J'aurois jure" qu'ils avoient tons raison. Enfin, on aura 
 peine a croire que par une suite de circonstances inutiles u rapporter, 
 cette dispute inteYessa cinq ou six nombreuses families, partagdes 
 comme les me"decins, et qui prdtendoient s'emparer du malade ; ella 
 dura, en un mot, jusques passe 1 le septieme de la maladie. Cependant, 
 malgre' les terribles menaces de mes trois maitres, le malade reduit a 
 la boisson et a la diete gudrit tres-bien. Je suivis cette gulrison parce 
 que j'e"tois reste" seul: je la trouvai trace'e par I'e'cole de Cos, et je 
 m' Serial, c'etoit done la route qu'il falloit prendre! " Recherches sur 
 le Tiissu Muyueux, 1767. 
 
 BOOKS CONSULTED. 
 
 1. Bibliotheqne Choise, tome vi. : 1716. 2. Oxford and Locke; 
 by Lord Grenville: London, 1829. 3. Life of John Locke; b}- Lord 
 King. 4. Original Letters of John Locke, Algernon Sidney, and 
 Lord Shaftesbury ; edited by T. Forster ; 2d edition : London, privately 
 printed, 1847. 5. Ward's Lives of the Professors of Gresham Col- 
 lege. G. Thomse Sydenham, M. D., Opera omnia; edidit G A 
 Greenhill, M. D. : Londini, impensis Societatis Sydenhamianae, 1844. 
 7. The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M. D. ; with a Life of the 
 Author; by R. G. Latham, M. D., 2 vols. : printed for the Sydenham 
 Society. 8. MSS. Letters and Common-place Books of Jolm Locke, 
 in the possession of the Earl of Lovelace.
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 "... Valetudinis conservationem, qua sine dubio primum est hujus 
 mice bonum, et cceterorum omnium fundamentum. Animus enim adeb 
 a temperamento et organorum corporis dispositione pendet, ut si ratio 
 aliqua j)ossit inveniri, quce homines saj)ientiores et ingeniosiores reddat 
 quam hactenus fuerunt, credam illam in Afedicind quteri debere." 
 RENATUS DESCAKTES De Methodo, vi. 
 
 " Ovid observes that there are morejine days than cloudy ones in the 
 
 year 
 
 ' Si numeres anno soles et nubUa toto, 
 Invenies nitidum scepius esse diem.' 
 
 It may be said likewise, that the days wherein men enjoy their health 
 are in greater number than those wherein they are sick. But there is 
 perhaps as much misery in fj 'teen days' sickness, as there is pleasure 
 in fifteen years' health." BAYLE, under the word PERICLES. 
 
 " Evnt homines mirari altu montium, ingentes Jiuctus marls, altissi- 
 mos lapsus fluminum, oceani ambitum et gyros siderum seipsos relin- 
 quunt nee admirantur." ST. AUSTIN.
 
 DE. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 E do not know a worthier subject for an essay 
 in one of our larger Medical Journals, than to 
 determine the just position of such a man as 
 Dr. Combe in the history of Medicine -showing what 
 it was in theory and in practice, in its laws as a science, 
 and in its rules as an art when he made his appear- 
 ance on its field, and what impression his character and 
 doctrines have made upon the public as requiring, and 
 upon his brethren as professing to furnish, the means 
 of health. The object of such an essay would be to 
 make out how far Dr. Combe's principles of inquiry, his 
 moral postulates, his method of cure, his views of the 
 powers and range of medicine as a science, estimative, 
 rather than exact, his rationale of human nature as com- 
 posite and in action, how far all these influences may 
 be expected to affect the future enlargement, enlighten- 
 ment, and quickening of that art which is, par excellence, 
 the art of life, and whose advance, in a degree of 
 which we can, from its present condition, form little 
 conception, was believed by one of the greatest intellects 
 of any age (Descartes) to be destined to play a signal 
 part in making mankind more moral, wiser, and hap- 
 pier, as well as stronger, longer-lived, and healthier. 
 The cause of morality of everything that is connected 
 with the onward movement of the race is more de- 
 pendent upon the bodily health, upon the organic
 
 122 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 soundness of the human constitution, than many poli- 
 ticians, moralists, and divines seem ready to believe. 
 
 Dr. Combe was not, perhaps, what is commonly called 
 a man of genius ; that is, genius was not his foremost 
 and most signal and efficient quality. He made no brill- 
 iant discovery in physiology or threapeutics, like some 
 of bis contemporaries. He did not, as by a sudden flash 
 of light, give form, and symmetry, and meaning to the 
 nervous system, as did Sir Charles Bell, when he proved 
 that every nerve is double ; that its sheath, like the 
 Britannia Bridge, contains two lines, carrying two trains 
 an up and a down ; the sensory, as the up, bringing 
 knowledge from without of all sorts to the brain ; the 
 motory, as the down, carrying orders from the same 
 great centre of sensation and will. Neither did he, like 
 Dr. Marshall Hall, render this discovery more exquisite, 
 by adding to it that of the excito-motor nerves the 
 system of reflex action, by which, with the most curious 
 nicety and art (for Nature is the art of God), each part 
 of our frame, however distinct in function, different in 
 structure, and distant from the others, may intercom- 
 municate with any or every part, as by an electric mes- 
 sage, thus binding in one common sympathy of pleasure 
 and pain, the various centres of organic and animal life 
 with each other, and with the imperial brain. Neither 
 did he, as Laennec, open the ear, and through it the 
 mind of the physician, to a new discipline, giving a 
 new method and means of knowledge and of cure. Nor, 
 finally, did he enrich practical medicine, as Dr. Aber- 
 crombie and others have done, with a selection of capi- 
 tal facts, of " middle propositions," from personal expe- 
 rience and reflection, and with the matured results of a 
 long-exercised sagacity and skill in diagnosis and in
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 treatment. He did not do all this for various reasons, 
 but mainly and simply because his Maker had other 
 and important work for him, and constituted and fitted 
 him accordingly, by a special teaching from within and 
 from without, for its accomplishment, vouchsafing to 
 him what is one of God's best blessings to any of his 
 creatures an innate perception of law, a love of first 
 principles, a readiness to go wherever they lead, and no- 
 where else. He discovered for to him it had all the 
 suddenness of a first sight that all the phenomena of 
 disease, of life, and of health, everything in the entire 
 round of the economy of man's microcosm, move accord- 
 ing to certain laws, and fixed modes of procedure laws 
 which are ascertainable by those who honestly seek them, 
 and which, in virtue of their reasonableness and benefi- 
 cence and their bearing, as it were, the " image and su- 
 perscription " of their Divine Giver, carry with them, into 
 all their fields of action, the double burden of reward and 
 punishment ; and that all this is as demonstrable as the 
 law of gravitation, which, while it shivers an erring 
 planet in its anger, and sends it adrift to " hideous ruin 
 and combustion," at the same moment, and by the very 
 same force, times the music of the spheres, compacts a 
 dew-drop, and guides, as of old, Arcturus and his sons. 
 This is Dr. Combe's highest his peculiar distinction 
 among medical writers. He burns, as with a passionate 
 earnestness, to bring back the bodily economy of man 
 to its allegiance to the Supreme Guide. He shows in 
 his works, and still more impressively in his living and 
 dying, the divine beauty and power and goodness that 
 chine out in every, the commonest, and what we call 
 meanest instance, of the adaptation of man by his Maker 
 to his circumstances, his duties, his sufferings, and his
 
 124 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 destiny. This may not be called original genius, per- 
 haps ; we are sorry it is as yet too original ; but in the 
 calm eye of reason and thoughtful goodness, and we 
 may in all reverence add, in the eye of the all-seeing 
 Unseen, it is something more divinely fair, more to ber 
 desired and honored, than much of what is generally 
 called genius. It is something which, if acted upon by 
 ten thousand men and women for five and-t\vetity years, 
 with the same simplicity, energy, constancy, and intelli- 
 gence, with which, for half his lifetime, it animated Dr. 
 Combe, would so transform the whole face of society, 
 and work such mighty changes in the very substance, so 
 to speak, of human nature, in all its ongoings, as would 
 as much transcend the physical marvels and glories of 
 our time, and the progress made thereby in civilization 
 and human wellbeing, as the heavens are higher than the 
 earth, and as our moral relations, our conformity to the 
 will nd the image of God are more than any advance 
 in mere knowledge and power man's highest exercise 
 and his chief end. We are not so foolish as to think 
 that in recognizing the arrangements of this world, and 
 all it contains, as being under God's law, Dr. Combe 
 made a discovery in the common sense of the word ; but 
 we do say that he unfolded the length and breadth, the 
 depth and height of this principle as a practical truth, 
 as a rule of life and duty, beyond any men before him. 
 And thus it was, that though he did not, like the other 
 eminent men we have mentioned, add formally to the 
 material of knowledge, he observed with his own eyes 
 more clearly, and explained the laws of healthy, and 
 through them, of diseased action, and promulgated their 
 certain rewards and punishments more convincingly 
 than anyone else. He made this plainer than othei
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE, 125 
 
 men, to every honest capacity, however humble. He 
 showed that man has an internal, personal activity, im- 
 planted in him by his Creator, for preserving or re- 
 covering that full measure of soundness, of wholeness, 
 of consentaneous harmonious action, of well-balanced, 
 mutually concurring forces, that "perfect diapason," 
 which constitutes health, or wholth, and for the use or 
 iibuse of which he, as a rational being, is answerable on 
 soul and conscience to himself, to his fellow-men, and 
 to his Maker. 
 
 Dr. Combe has so beautifully given his own account 
 of this state and habit of mind and feeling, this princi- 
 pled subjection of everything within him to God's will, 
 as manifested in his works and in his creatures, that we 
 quote it here. 
 
 " The late Rev. Mr. of stopped me one day, 
 
 to say that he had read my Physiology with great satis- 
 faction, and that what pleased him greatly was the vein 
 of genuine piety which pervaded every page, a piety 
 uucontaminated by cant. Some of my good friends who 
 have considered me a lax observer of the outward forms 
 of piety, might laugh at this. Nevertheless, it gave me 
 pleasure, because in my conscience I felt its truth. 
 There is scarcely a single page in all my three physiolog- 
 ical works, in which such a feeling was not active as 1 
 wrote. The unvarying tendency of my mind is to re- 
 gard the whole laws of the animal economy, and of the 
 universe, as the direct dictates of the Deity ; and in 
 urging compliance with them, it is with the earnestness 
 and reverence due to a Divine command that I do it. 
 / almost lose the consciousness of self in the anxiety to 
 attain the end ; and where I see clearly a law of God 
 in our own nature, I rely upon its efficiency for good
 
 129 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 with a faith and peace which 110 storm cau shake, and 
 feel pity for those who remain blind to its origin, wis- 
 dom, and beneficence. I therefore say it solemnly, and 
 with the prospect of death at no distant day, that I ex- 
 perienced great delight/when writing my books, in the 
 consciousness that I was, to the best of my ability, ex- 
 pounding 'the ways of God to man,' and in so far 
 fulfilling one of the highest objects of human existence. 
 God was, indeed, ever present to my thoughts." Life, 
 p. 401. 
 
 This was the secret of his power over himself and 
 others He believed and therefore he spake ; he could 
 not but speak, and when he did, it was out of the abun- 
 dauce of his heart. Being impressed and moved, he be- 
 came of necessity impressive and motive. Hence if there 
 be not in his works much of the lightning of genius, 
 resolving error into its constituent elements by a stroke, 
 unfolding in one glance both earth and heaven, and 
 bringing out in bright relief some long-hidden truth 
 if he but seldom astonish us with the full-voiced thunder 
 of eloquence ; there is in his pages, everywhere pervad- 
 ing them as an essence, that still small voice, powerful 
 but not by its loudness, which finds its way into the 
 deeper and more sacred recesses of our rational nature, 
 and speaks to our highest interests and senses the 
 voice of moral obligation calling us to gratitude and obe- 
 dience. His natural capacity and appetite for knowl- 
 edge, his love of first principles, his thoughtful vivacity, 
 his unfeigned active benevolence, his shrewdness, his 
 affections, his moral courage and faithfulness, his clear 
 definite ideas, his whole life, his very sufferings, sor- 
 rows, and regrets, were all, as by a solemn act of his 
 entire nature, consecrated to this one absorbing end.
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 127 
 
 Thus it was that he kept himself alive so long, with a 
 mortal malady haunting him for years, and was enabled 
 to read to others the lessons he had learned for himself 
 in the valley of the shadow of death. 
 
 We have been struck, in reading Dr. Combe's works, 
 and especially his Memoir by his brother, by the resem- 
 l>lance, not merely in principles and rules, and in the 
 point from which they view their relations to their pro- 
 fession, but in more special characteristics of tempera- 
 ment and manner, between him and the illustrious Sy- 
 deuham, and the still more famous "divine old man of 
 Cos." We allude to the continual reference by them to 
 Nature, as a regulating power in the human body ; their 
 avoiding speculations as to essence, and keeping to the 
 consideration of conjunct causes ; their regarding them- 
 selves as the expounders of a law of life, and the inter- 
 preters and ministers of Nature. This one master idea, 
 truly religious in its character, gives to them a steady 
 fervor, a calm persistent enthusiasm or "entheasm" (ti/ 
 and eos), which we regret, for the honor and the good 
 of human nature, is too rare in medical literature, an- 
 cient or modern. The words " Nature," and " the Al- 
 mighty," " the Supreme Disposer," etc., occur in Syden- 
 ham's works as frequently and with the same reference 
 as they do in Dr. Combe's. 
 
 The following passage from Sydenham, on Nature, will 
 illustrate our meaning : "I here [in the conclusion of 
 his observations on the fever and plague of 1665 and 
 1666] subjoin a short note, lest my opinion of Nature 
 be taken in a wrong sense. In the foregoing discourse, 
 I have made use of the term Nature, and ascribed vari- 
 ous effects to her, as I would thereby represent some 
 one self-existent being, everywhere diffused throughout
 
 128 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 the machine of the universe, which, being endowed with 
 reason, governs and directs all bodies such an one as 
 some philosophers seem to have conceived the soul of 
 the world to be. But I neither affect novelty in my 
 sentiments or expressions ; I have made use of this an- 
 cient word in these pages, if I mistake not, in a qualified 
 sense ; for by Nature I always mean a certain assem- 
 blage of natural causes, which, though destitute of reason 
 and contrivance, are directed in the wisest manner while 
 they perform their operations and produce their effects ; 
 or, in other words, the Supreme Being, by whose power 
 all things are created and preserved, disposes them all 
 in such manner, by his infinite wisdom, that they pro- 
 ceed to their appointed functions with a certain regular- 
 ity and order, performing nothing in vain, but only 
 what is best and fittest for the whole frame of the uni- 
 verse and their own peculiar nature, and so are moved 
 like machines, not by any skill of their own, but by that 
 of the artist." 
 
 And Hippocrates briefly says, " Nature in man is the 
 aggregate of all things that concur to perfect health, and 
 the foundation of all right reasoning and practice in 
 physic"* exactly the same great truth which Dr. 
 Combe and Sir John Forbes, thousands of years after- 
 wards, are abused by their brethren for proclaiming; 
 and the old Ephesian cry is raised loud and long among 
 the craftsmen, who, like Demetrius and his crew, are 
 less filled with reason than with wrath. 
 
 As we have already said, Dr. Combe was distin- 
 guished neither as a discoverer nor as a practitioner. 
 Owing to feeble health, he was not permitted the oppor- 
 tunity of being the latter, though he possessed some of 
 
 i See Note, p. 161.
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 129 
 
 the highest qualities of a great physician ; and the even- 
 ness of his powers probably would have prevented him 
 from making any one brilliant hit as the former : for it 
 is our notion, for which we have not space here to assign 
 the reasons, that original geniuses in any one depart- 
 ment, are almost always odd 1 that is, are uneven, 
 have some one predominant faculty lording it over the 
 rest. So that, if we look back among the great men in 
 medicine, we would say that Dr. Combe was less like 
 Harvey, or even Sydenharn, than Locke, who, though 
 nj}t generally thought so, was quite as much of a physi- 
 cian during his life, as of a philosopher and politician. 
 It was not merely in their deeper constitutional qualities 
 
 their love of truth, and of the God of truth their 
 tendency towards what was immediately and mainly use- 
 ful their preferring observation to speculation, but 
 not declining either, as the help and complement of the 
 Other ; their choosing rather to study the mind or body 
 as a totum quid, a unit, active and executive, and as a 
 means to an end, than to dogmatize and dream about its 
 transcendental constitution, or its primary and ultimate 
 condition ; their valuing in themselves, and in others, 
 soundness of mind and body, above mere strength and 
 quickness ; their dislike to learned phrases, and their at- 
 tachment to freedom political, religious, and personal 
 
 it was not merely in these larger and more substan- 
 tial matters that John Locke and Andrew Combe were 
 
 1 " "We usually say that man is a genius, but he has some whims 
 and oddities. Now, in such a case, we would speak more rationally, 
 did we substitute therefore for but. He is a genius, therefore he is 
 whimsical." Dr. John Aitkin. To be sure, it is one thing to have 
 genius, and another to be one, the difference being between possessing, 
 and being possessed by. 
 9
 
 130 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 alike : they had in their outward circumstances and his- 
 tories some curious coincidences. 
 
 Both were grave, silent, dark-haired, and tall ; both 
 were unmarried, both were much in the company of 
 women of culture, and had much of their best pleasure 
 from their society and sympathy, and each had one of 
 the best of her sex to watch over his declining years, 
 and to close his eyes ; to whose lot it fell, in the tender 
 words of Agricola's stern son-in-law " assidere valetu- 
 dini,fovere deficientem, satiari vul(u, complexu." More- 
 over, both were educated for medicine, but had to relin- 
 quish the active practice of it from infirm health, and in 
 each the local malady was in the lungs. Both, by a sort 
 of accident, came in close contact with men in the highest 
 station, and were their advisers and friends we refer 
 to Lord Shaftesbury, and to the Third William and Leo- 
 pold, two of the wisest and shrewdest of ancient or mod- 
 ern kings. They resided much abroad, and owed, doubt- 
 less, not a little of their largeness of view, and their 
 superiority to prejudice, to having thus seen mankind 
 from many points. Both had to make the art of keeping 
 themselves alive the study of their health a daily 
 matter of serious thought, arrangement, and action. 
 They were singularly free from the foibles and preju- 
 dices of invalids; both were quietly humorous, playful 
 in their natures, and had warm and deep, but not de- 
 monstrative affections ; and to each was given the honor 
 of benefiting their species to a degree, and in a variety 
 of ways, not easily estimated. Locke, though he may 
 be wrong in many of his views of the laws and opera- 
 tions of the human mind, did more than any one man 
 ever did before him, to strengthen and rectify, and re- 
 etore to healthy vigor, the active powers of the mind
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 131 
 
 observation, reason, and judgment ; and of him, the 
 weighty and choice words of Lord Grenville are literally 
 true : " With Locke commenced the bright era of a new 
 philosophy, which, whatever were still its imperfections, 
 had for its basis clear and determinate conceptions ; free 
 inquiry and unbiassed reason for its instruments, and for 
 its end truth, truth unsophisticated and undisguised, 
 shedding its pure light over every proper object of the 
 human understanding, but confining itself with reveren- 
 tial awe within those bounds which an all-wise Creator 
 has set to our inquiries." While, on the other hand, Dr. 
 Combe, making the body of man his chief study, did for 
 it what Locke did for the mind : he explained the laws 
 of physiology, rather than the structure of the organs ; 
 he was more bent upon mastering the dynamics than the 
 statics of health and disease ; but we are too near his 
 time, too imperfectly aware of what he has done for us, 
 to be able to appreciate the full measure or quality of 
 the benefit he has bestowed upon us and our posterity, 
 by his simply reducing man to himself bringing him 
 back to the knowledge, the acknowledgment, and the 
 obedience of the laws of his nature. 
 
 Dr. Combe's best-known publications are, his Princi- 
 ples of Physiology applied to Health and Education, his 
 Physiology of Digestion, and his Treatise on the Physio- 
 logical and Moral Management of Infancy. The first 
 was the earliest, and is still the best exposition and ap- 
 plication of the laws of health. His Digestion is perhaps 
 the most original of the three. It is not so much taken 
 up as such treatises, however excellent, generally are 
 
 with what to eat and what not to eat, as with how to 
 eat anything and avoid nothing, how so to regulate the 
 great ruling powers of the body, as to make the stomach
 
 132 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 do its duty upon whatever that is edible is submitted to 
 it. His book on the Management of Infancy is to us the 
 most delightful of all his works : it has the simplicity 
 and mild strength, the richness and vital nutriment of 
 " the sincere milk " that first and best-cooked food of 
 man. This lactea ubertas pervades the whole little vol- 
 ume ; and we know of none of Dr. Combe's books in 
 which the references to a superintending Providence, to 
 a Divine Father, to a present Deity, to be loved, hon- 
 ored, and obeyed, are so natural, so impressive, so nu- 
 merous, and so child-like. His Observations on Mental 
 Derangement have long been out of print. We sincerely 
 trust that Dr. James Coxe, who has so well edited the 
 last edition of his uncle's Physiology, may soon give us a 
 new one of this important work, which carries his princi- 
 ples into an important region of human suffering. Apart 
 altogether from its peculiar interest as an application of 
 Phrenology to the knowledge and cure of Insanity it 
 is, as Dr. Abercrombie, who was not lavish of his praise, 
 said, "full of sound observation and accurate thinking, 
 and likely to be very useful." 
 
 There is, by the by, one of Dr. Combe's papers, not 
 mentioned by his brother, which we remember reading 
 with great satisfaction and profit, and which shows how 
 he carried his common sense, and his desire to be useful, 
 into the minutest arrangements. It appears in Cham- 
 bers's Journal for August 30, 1834, and is entitled, 
 " Sending for the Doctor ; " we hope to see the nine 
 rules therein laid down, in the next edition of the Life. 
 
 We shall now conclude this curious survey of Dr. 
 Combe's relations, general and direct, to medicine, by 
 earnestly recommending the study of his Memoirs to all 
 medical men, young and old, but especially the young
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 133 
 
 They will get not merely much instruction of a general 
 kind, from the contemplation of a character of singular 
 worth, beauty, and usefulness, but they will find lessons 
 everywhere, in their own profession, lessons in doctrine 
 and in personal conduct ; and they will find the entire 
 history of a patient's life and death, given with a rare 
 fulness, accuracy, and impressiveness ; they will get hints 
 incidentally of how he managed the homeliest and most 
 delicate matters ; how, with order, honesty, and an ar- 
 dent desire to do good, he accomplished so much, 
 against and in spite of so much. We would, in fine, 
 recommend his letter to Sir James Clark on the impor- 
 tance of Hygiene as a branch of medical education (p. 
 311) ; his letter to the same friend on medical education 
 (p. 341), in regard to which we agree with Sir James, 
 that the medical student cannot have a better guide dur- 
 ing the progress of his studies ; a letter on the state of 
 medical science (p. 400) ; his remarks on the qualifica- 
 tions for the superintendent of a lunatic asylum ; and, 
 at p. 468, on scepticism on the subject of medical sci- 
 ence. These, and his three admirable letters to Dr. 
 Forbes, would make a choice little book. We conclude 
 with a few extracts taken from these papers at random. 
 It would be difficult to put more truth on their subjects 
 into better words. 
 
 " I have always attached much less importance than 
 is usually done, to the abstract possibility or impossibil- 
 ity of finishing the compulsory part of professional edu- 
 cation, within a given time, and have long thought that 
 more harm than good has been done by fixing too early 
 a limit. The intelligent exercise of medicine requires 
 not only a greater extent of scientific, and general attain- 
 ments, but also readier comprehensiveness of mind, and
 
 134 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 greater accuracy of thinking and maturity of judgment, 
 than perhaps any other profession ; and these are quali- 
 ties rarely to be met with in early youth. So generally 
 is this felt to be the case, that it is an all but universal 
 practice for those who are really devoted to the profes- 
 sion, to continue their studies for two or three years, or 
 even more, after having gone through the prescribed 
 curriculum, and obtained their diplomas ; and those only 
 follow a different course who are pressed by necessity to 
 encounter the responsibilities of practice, whether satis- 
 fied or not with their own qualifications ; and if this be 
 the case, does it not amount to a virtual recognition, 
 that the period now assigned by the curriculum is too 
 short, and ought to be extended ? In point of fact, this 
 latter period of study is felt by all to be by far the most 
 instructive of the whole, because now the mind is com- 
 paratively matured, and able to draw its own inferences 
 from the facts and observations of which it could before 
 make little or no use ; and it is precisely those who en- 
 ter upon practice too early who are most apt to become 
 routine practitioners, and to do the least for the advance- 
 ment of medicine as a science." P. 343. 
 
 " The only thing of which I doubt the propriety is, 
 requiring the study of logic and moral philosophy at so 
 early an age. For though a young man before eighteen 
 may easily acquire a sufficient acquaintance with one or 
 two books on these subjects, such as Whately and Paley, 
 to be able to answer questions readily, I am quite con- 
 vinced that his doing so will be the result merely of an 
 intellectual effort in which memory will be exercised 
 much more than judgment, and that the subjects will 
 not become really useful to him like those which he feels 
 and thoroughly understands, but will slip from him the
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 13 
 
 moment his examination is at an end, and probably 
 leave a distaste for them ever after. To logic, so far as 
 connected with the structure of language, there can be 
 no objection at that age ; but as an abstract branch of 
 science, I regard it, in its proper development, as fit only 
 for a more advanced period of life. The whole basis 
 and superstructure of moral philosophy, too, imply for 
 their appreciation a practical knowledge of human na- 
 ture, and of man's position in society, of his proper aims 
 and duties, and of his political situation, which it is 
 impossible for a mere youth to possess ; and, in the ab- 
 sence of acquaintance with, and interest in the real sub- 
 jects, to train the mind to the use of words and phrases 
 descriptive of them (but, to him, without correct mean- 
 ing) is likely to be more injurious than beneficial. A 
 man must have seen and felt some of the perplexities of 
 his destiny, and begun to reflect upon them in his own 
 mind, before he can take an intelligent interest in their 
 discussion. To reason about them sooner, is like reason- 
 ing without data ; and besides, as the powers of reflec- 
 tion are always the latest in arriving at maturity, we 
 may fairly infer that Nature meant the knowledge and 
 experience to come first." P. 348. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton, who differs so widely from 
 Dr. Combe in much, agrees with him in this, as may be 
 seen from the following note in his edition of Reid, p. 
 420. 1 
 
 1 As a corollary of this truth ("Reflection does not appear in chil- 
 dren. Of all the powers of the mind, it seems to be of the latest 
 growth, whereas consciousness is coeval with the earliest"), Mr. 
 Stewart makes the following observations, in which he is supported 
 bv every competent authority in education. The two northern uni- 
 versities ba" long withdrawn themselves from the reproach of plac- 
 ing Physic" last in their curriculum of arts. In that of Edinburgh,
 
 136 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 " If there is one fault greater than another, and one 
 source of error more prolific than another, in medical 
 investigations, it is the absence of a consistent and phil- 
 osophic mode of proceeding ; and no greater boon could 
 be conferred upon medicine, as a science, than to render 
 its cultivators familiar with the laws or principles by 
 which inquiry ought to be directed. I therefore regard 
 what I should term a system of Medical Logic as of 
 inestimable value in the education of the practitioner ; 
 but I think that the proper time for it would be after 
 the student had acquired a competent extent of knowl- 
 edge, and a certain maturity of mind." P. 350. 
 
 " The one great object ought to be the due qualifica- 
 
 no order is prescribed ; but in St. Andrews and Glasgow, the % class of 
 Physics still stands after those of mental philosophy. This absurdity 
 is, it is to be observed, altogether of a modern introduction. For, 
 when our Scottish universities were founded, and long after, the phi- 
 losophy of mind was taught by the professor of physics. " I appre- 
 hend," says Mr. Stewart, " that the study of the mind should form 
 the last branch of the education of youth; an order which Nature her- 
 self seems to point out, by what I have already remarked with respect 
 to the development of our faculties. After the understanding is well 
 stored with particular facts, and has been conversant with particular 
 scientific pursuits, it will be enabled to speculate concerning its own 
 powers with additional advantage, and will run no hazard in indulg- 
 ing too far in such inquiries. Nothing can be more absurd, on this as 
 well as on many other accounts, than the common practice which is 
 followed in our universities [in some only], of beginning a course 
 of philosophical education with the study of logic. If this order were 
 completely reversed ; and if the study of logic were delayed till after 
 the mind of the student was well stored with particular facts in phys- 
 ics, in chemistry, in natural and civil history, his attention might be 
 led with the most important advantage, and without any danger to 
 his power of observation, to an examination of his own faculties, 
 which, besides opening to him a new and pleasing field of speculation 
 would enable him to form an estimate of his own powers, of the acqui- 
 sitions he has made, of the habits he has formed, and of the f urthe- 
 improvements of which his mind is susceptible." H.
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 137 
 
 tion of the practitioner ; and whatever will contribute 
 to that end ought to be retained, whether it may happen 
 to agree with or differ from the curricula of other uni- 
 
 O 
 
 versities or licensing bodies. Ttie sooner one uniform 
 system of education and equality of privileges prevails 
 throughout the kingdom, the better for all parties." P. 
 359. 
 
 " The longer I live, the more I am convinced that 
 medical education is too limited and too hurried, rather 
 than too extended ; for, after all, four years is but a short 
 time for a mind still immature to be occupied in master- 
 ing and digesting so many subjects and so many details. 
 Instead of the curriculum being curtailed, however, I 
 feel assured that ultimately the period of study will be 
 extended. Supposing a young man to be engaged in 
 the acquisition of knowledge and experience till the age 
 of twenty-three instead of twenty-one, can it be said 
 that he will then be too old for entering upon independ- 
 ent practice ? or that his mind is even then fully ma- 
 tured, or his stock of knowledge such as to inspire full 
 confidence ? It is in vain to say that young men will 
 not enter the profession if these additions are made. 
 The result would inevitably be to attract a higher class 
 of minds, and to raise the character of the whole pro- 
 fession." P. 360. 
 
 " The bane of medicine and of medical education at 
 present is its partial and limited scope. Branches of 
 knowledge, valuable in themselves, are studied almost 
 always separately, and without relation to their general 
 bearing upon the one grand object of the medical art, 
 viz., the healthy working or restoration of the whole 
 bodily and mental functions. We have abundance of 
 tourses of lectures on all sorts of subjects, but are no-
 
 138 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 where taught to group their results into practical masses 
 or principles. The higher faculties of the professional 
 mind are thus left in a great measure unexercised. The 
 limited and exclusive knowledge of the observing powers 
 is alone sought after, and an irrational experience is 
 substituted for that which alone is safe, because com- 
 prehensive and true in spirit. The mind thus exercised 
 within narrow limits, becomes narrowed and occvpied 
 with small things. Small feelings follow, and the natural 
 result is that place in public estimation which narrow- 
 mindedness and cleverness in small things deserves. The 
 profession seeks to put down quacks, to obtain medical 
 reform by Act of Parliament, and to acquire public in- 
 fluence ; and a spirit is now active which will bring forth 
 good fruit in due time. An Act of Parliament can 
 remedy many absurdities connected with the privileges 
 of old colleges and corporations, and greatly facilitate 
 improvement ; but the grand reform must come from 
 within, and requires no Act to legalize its appearance. 
 Let the profession cultivate their art in a liberal and 
 comprehensive spirit, and give evidence of the predomi- 
 nance of the scientific over the trade-like feeling, and 
 the public will no longer withhold their respect or deny 
 their influence." P. 400. 
 
 " If you ask. Why did not God effect his aim with- 
 out inflicting pain or suffering on any of us? that just 
 opens up the question, Why did God see fit to make 
 man, man, and not an angel ? I can see why a watch- 
 maker makes a watch here and a clock there, because 
 my faculties and nature are on a par with the watch- 
 maker's ; but to understand why God made man what 
 he is, I must have the faculties and comprehension of 
 the Divine Being; or, in other words, the creature must
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 139 
 
 be the equal of the Creator in intellect before he can 
 understand the cause of his own original formation. 
 Into that, therefore, I am quite contented not to in- 
 quire." P. 403. 
 
 " I should say that the province of Hygiene is to ex- 
 amine the relations existing between the human consti- 
 tution on the one hand, and the various external objects 
 or influences by which it is surrounded on the other; 
 and to deduce, from that examination, the principles or 
 rules by which the highest health and efficiency of all 
 our functions, moral, intellectual, and corporeal, may 
 be most certainly secured, and by obedience to which 
 we may, when once diseased, most speedily and safely 
 regain our health. But perhaps the true nature of Hy- 
 giene will be best exhibited by contrasting what at pres- 
 ent is taught, with what we require at the bedside of 
 the patient, and yet are left to pick up at random in the 
 best way we can." P. 312 
 
 " Hygi ene > according to my view, really forms the 
 connecting link by which '1.1 the branches of profes- 
 sional knowledge are bovnd together, and rendered 
 available in promoting human health and happiness ; 
 and, in one sense, is consequently the most important 
 subject for a course of lectures, although very oddly 
 almost the only one which has not been taught syste- 
 matically ; and I consider the absence of the connecting 
 principle as the main cause why medicine has advanced 
 so slowly, and still assumes so little of the aspect of a 
 certain science, notwithstanding all the talent, time, and 
 labor devoted to its cultivation." P. 319.
 
 140 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 NOTE. P. 128. 
 
 VIS MEDICATRIX NATUR.S. 
 
 DR. ADAMS, in his Preliminary Discourse to the Sydenham Socie- 
 ty's Edition of the Genuine Works of Hippocrates, translated aud an- 
 notated by him a work, as full of the best common sense and judg- 
 ment, as it is of the best learning and scholarship has the following 
 passage : 
 
 41 Above all others, Hippocrates was strictly the physician of experi- 
 ence and common sense. In short, the basis of his system was a 
 rational experience, and not a blind empiricism, so that the Empirics 
 in after ages had no good grounds for claiming him as belonging to 
 their sect. 
 
 44 One of the most distinguishing characteristics, then, of the Hippo- 
 cratic system of medicine, is the importance attached in it to prognosis, 
 under which was comprehended a complete acquaintance with the 
 previous and present condition of the patient, and the tendency of the 
 disease. To the overstrained system of Diagnosis practised in the 
 school of Cnidos, agreeably to which diseases were divided and sub- 
 divided arbitrarily into endless varieties, Hippocrates was decidedly 
 opposed; his own strong sense and high intellectual cultivation hav- 
 ing, no doubt, led him to the discovery, that to accidental varieties of 
 diseased action there is no limit, and that what is indefinite cannot be 
 reduced to science. 
 
 44 Nothing strikes one as a stronger proof of his nobility of soul, 
 when we take into account the early period in human cultivation at 
 which he lived, and his descent from a priestly order, than the contempt 
 which he everywhere expresses for ostentatious charlatanry, and his 
 perfect freedom from all popular superstition. 1 Of amulets and com- 
 
 1 " This is the more remarkable, as it does not appear to have been the es- 
 tablished creed of the greatest literary men and philosophers of the age, who 
 still adhered, or professed to adhere, to the popular belief ia the extraordi- 
 nary interference of the gods with the works of Nature and the affairs of 
 mankind. This, at least, was remarkably the case with Socrates, w'n-ise 
 mind, like that of most men who make a great impression on the religious 
 feelings of their age, had evidently a deep tinge of mysticism. See Xenoph 
 Mentor, i. 1. 6-9 ; Ibid. iv. 7. 7 ; also Crete's History of Greece, vol. i. p. 499 
 The latter remarks, ' Physical and astronomical phenomena are classified by 
 Socrates among the divine class, interdicted to human study.' (Mem. i 
 1. 13.) lie adds, in reference to llippocrates, ' On the other hand, Uippoc- 
 rates, the contemporary of Socrates, denied the discrepancy, and merged
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 141 
 
 plicated machines to impose on the credulity of the ignorant multitude, 
 there is no mention in any part of his works. All diseases he traces to 
 natural causes, and counts it impiety to maintain that any one more 
 than another is an infliction from the Divinity. How strikingly the 
 Hippocratic system differs from that of all other nations in their in- 
 fantine state, must be well known to every person who is well 
 acquainted with the early history of medicine. His theory of medi- 
 cine was further based on the physical philosophy of the ancients, 
 more especially on the doctrines then held regarding the elements of 
 things, and the belief in the existence of a spiritual essence diffused 
 through the whole works of creation, which was regarded as the agent 
 that presides over the acts of generation, and which constantly strives 
 to preserve all things in their natural state, and to restore them when 
 they are preternatural ly deranged. This is the principle which he 
 called Nature, and which he held to be a vis medicatrix. 'Nature,' 
 says he, or at least one of his immediate followers says, ' is the phy- 
 sician of diseases.' " 
 
 STAHL, in one of his numerous short occasional Tracts, Schediasmata, 
 as he calls them, in which his deep and fiery nature was constantly 
 finding vent, thus opens on the doctrine of "Nature," as held by the 
 ancients. Besides the thought, it is a good specimen of this great 
 man's abrupt, impetuous, pregnant, and difficult expressions : 
 
 " Notanter Hippocrates 6. Kpidem. 5. 'An-ou'SevTo? 17 <j>vcris eoCcra Kai 
 oil naOova-a, TO. SeovTa rroieei. Cum a nullo informata sit NATURA, neque 
 quicquam didicerit, ea tamen quibus opus est, efficit. Ejficere et ope- 
 rari, dicit ; neque incongrua et aliena, sed qua? necessaria sint, quae 
 conveniant: Operari autem ipsam per se, non ex consilio (intellige, 
 alieno) lin. prseced. monet. Effeclivum hoc & operalivum Principium, 
 ri)v <ii<ru', appellat, TO Sriniovpyiicbv ijniai> alnov circumscribit Galen, de 
 Placit. Hipp, (f Platon. 1. 9. hunc eundem locum attingens. De hac 
 Natura prolixius idem Galenus lib. de Natur. facult. asserit, quod 
 ilia, suis viribus usa, quce noxia sunt, expellere noverit, quce utilia, usui 
 servare. Quod idem et lib. i. crip. s. de diff. Febb. repetit. Snpien- 
 tissimam ipsam esse, itidem adstruit lib. de arte. Et omnia facere 
 talutis hominum causa, in Comm. ad nostrum locum interpretatur. Ne- 
 que hoc tantum de statu Corporis Humani tranquillo, et sibi constante, 
 intelligendum, sed monent etiam iidem, Naturam hactenus dictam, 
 consulere corpori in dubiis rebus, ingruente nocumentorum periculo, 
 
 into one the two classes of phenomena the divine and the scientifically de- 
 terminable which the latter had put asunder. Hippocrates treated all phe- 
 nomena as at once both, divine and scientifically delcrminable. 1 "
 
 142 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 
 
 imo actuales, noxa-s illatas, ita depellere, corrigere, cxterminare, resar- 
 cire, ut propterea Hippocrates, paulo antksententiam hactenus citatam, 
 diserte affirmet, Naturam mederi morlis. In quam ipsam assertionein, 
 ut satis fuse consentit Galenas, ita notabilia sunt ejus verba, quod Na~ 
 tura malum sentlens, gestiat maynopere mederi. Et Corn. Celsus, lib. 
 3. c. i. Repugnante Natura, ait, nihil proficit Mediclna. lino nee 
 deficitnte eadem, ut Hipp. lib. de arte monet, quicquam obtinet Med- 
 ico, ars, sed peril ceyer. Dies deficiat, neque hsec charta capiat, si 
 plerosque tantum, qui comparent, testes Medicos Practices scriptores, 
 citare liberet. Nimirum QUOD tale Activum et Effectivum, Gubernans, 
 dirigens, re yens, Principium in Corpore Vivo praesto sit, tarn in statu 
 sano quam concusso, ayens, vigilans, propugnans, onines agnoscunt. 
 
 " Ut undique NATURA, hoc sensu, ut Effectivum quoddam, et qui- 
 dem (cupi'ws tale, Principium asseratur, quod, arbitrarie, agere non 
 agere, recte aut perperam Organa sua actuare, iisque non magis uti, 
 quam abuti queat. 
 
 " Adornarunt hanc Doctrinae Medicse partem complures, turn Anti- 
 quiores, tiim propiorum temporum Doctores, sed nou eodein omnes suc- 
 cessu, nee fort6 eadem intentione. Prolixiores fuerunt Veteres, in illia 
 S vdneo-iv, a's SioKixelrai TO <aov, ut ipsam <t>v<riv Ilippocratis describit 
 Galenus lib. de Crisibus, et 1. 5. de Sympt. Caus. Facultatem Corporit 
 nostri Reclricem optima jure Naturae nomine insiyniendam, deccrnit. 
 Sed inundavit hinc Faculiatem variarum, congeries, & omneni Phy- 
 sioloyice antiquioris paginam adeo absolrit, ut nihil offenderetur, quam 
 merse Facilitates, Vitalis, Naturalis, Animalis, Genitalis, Rationalis, 
 Eapultrix, Retentrix, Attractrix, Locomotrix, Coctrix, Excretrix, 
 Sanguifica, Chylifica, &c. &c." 
 
 To the Homo2opathic delusion, or shall we call it "persuasion," 
 whose chief merit and mischief it is to be "not anything so much as 
 a nothing which looks like a something," we owe the recognition, in 
 a much more practical way than before, of the self-regulating principle 
 in living bodies the physician inside the skin. It is hardly neces- 
 sary to state, that the best modem exposition of this doctrine, and its 
 relation to therapeutics, is to be found in SIR JOHN FORBES' courage- 
 ous, thoughtful, and singularly candid little book, Art and Nature in 
 the Cure of Disease. 
 
 Many years ago, a countryman called on a physician in York. He 
 was in the depths of dyspeptic despair, as often happens with the chaw- 
 bacons. The doctor gave him some plain advice as to his food, mak- 
 ing a thorough change, and ended by writing a prescription for some 
 tonic, saying, "Take that, and come back in a fortnight." In tea 
 day Giles came in, blooming and happy, quite well. The doctor was
 
 DR. ANDREW COMBE. 143 
 
 delighted, and not a little proud of his skill. He asked to see what he 
 had given him. Giles said he had n't got it. " Where was it ? " "I 
 took it, Sir." " Took it ! what have you done with it V " "I ate it, 
 Sir ! you told me to take it ! " We once told this little story to a 
 Homoeopathic friend, adding, "Perhaps you think the iron in the ink 
 may be credited with the cure ?" "Well," said my much-believing 
 friend, "there is no saying." No saying, indeed ! and no thinking 
 either ! such matters lie at least in the region of the non-know* '&.
 
 DR. HENRY MARSHALL AND MILITARY 
 HYGIENE. 
 
 'To labor diligently, and to be content," says the son of Sirach, 
 "is a sweet life." 
 
 " My greatest deliylit has been to promote a melioration of the con- 
 dition of soldiers, and in the prosecution of this important object, 1 
 hope I have done some good." Da. MARSHALL. 
 
 1C
 
 DR. HENRY MARSHALL AND MILITARY 
 HYGIENE. 
 
 WENTY-FIVE years ago, the British soldiei 
 (taking ninety-nine out of a hundred) was a 
 man who, when in the eye of the law a minor, 
 had iu a fit of passion, or when drunk, or from idleness, 
 want, or to avoid civil punishment, sold his personal lib- 
 erty, his life in one word, himself to the State with- 
 out reservation. In return for this, he got a bounty of 
 3, 10s., which was taken back as soon as he was at- 
 tested, to pay for his outfit his kit, at it is called 
 and he enjoyed an annuity of Is. Id. a day, out of 
 which, after paying his share of the mess, his shoes, etc., 
 there remained of daily surplus about 3d. The State 
 provided lodging and medical attendance, and the name, 
 but little else, of religious and general education. In 
 return, he put his will in the hands of the State, and was 
 bound, at any time, and upon any ground, to destroy any 
 other man's life, or lose his own, at the word of com- 
 mand. 1 He was, as rapidly as possible, drilled into that 
 
 1 Every one knows Herr Diogenes Teufelsdrock's account of this in 
 that fantastic and delightful book Sartor Resartus : "What, speak- 
 ing in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and upshot of sol- 
 diers and of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell 
 and toil in the British village of Drumdrudge, usually some five hun- 
 dred souls. From these, by certain 'natural enemies' of the French, 
 there are necessarily selected, during the French war, say thirty able- 
 bodied men. Drumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and
 
 148 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 perfect man-slaying instrument, that consummate de- 
 Btroyer, that we and our enemies know him to be. And 
 having no hope, no self-respect, no spiritual progression, 
 nothing to look forward to, he sank into the sullen, 
 stupid, indomitable human bull-dog. He lived in hope- 
 less celibacy, shut out from the influence of any but 
 the worst of the other sex. He became proverbially 
 drunken, licentious, and profane. He knew his officer 
 only to obey him, and often to hate and despise him. 
 Memory and hope died within him ; for what had he to 
 remember but his own early follies and fatal enlistment, 
 or to anticipate but the chances of his being killed, or 
 dying wretchedly of disease, or being turned off a stupid, 
 helpless, and friendless old man ? No wonder that he 
 
 nursed them ; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up 
 to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, 
 and another build, another hammer or stitch, and the weakest can 
 stand under thirty pounds avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much 
 weeping and swearing, they are selected, all dressed in red, and 
 shipped away at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say 
 only to the south of Spain, and fed and scourged there till wanted. 
 And now to that same spot in the south of Spain are thirty French 
 handicraftsmen from a French Drumdrudge, in like manner wending ; 
 till at length, after infinite effort and expense, the two parties actually 
 meet, and thirty stand confronting thirty, each with a gun in his hand. 
 Straightway the word ' fire ' is given, and they blow the souls out of 
 one another ; and in place of sixty brisk, useful workmen, the world 
 has sixty dead carcasses which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. 
 Had these men any quarrel ? Busy as the devil is, not the smallest ; 
 they lived far enough apart, nay, in so wide a world, there was even 
 unconsciously, by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. 
 How then ? Simpleton ! Their governors had fallen out, and instead 
 of shooting one another, had the cunning to make their poor block- 
 heads shoot. In that fiction of the English Smollett, it is true, the 
 final cessation of war is perhaps prophetically shadowed forth when 
 the 'two natural enemies' (France and Britain) in person take each a 
 tobacco-pipe filled with brimstone, light the same, and smoke in each 
 other's faces till one or both give in."
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 149 
 
 was, as is proved by the greater frequency of suicide in 
 military than in civil life, more miserable and less care- 
 ful of himself than other men. His daily routine was 
 somewhat as follows : He was drummed out of bed at 
 five o'clock, his room being a large common dormitory, 
 where three or four blackguards might make all the rest 
 comfortless and silent. He rushed out of doors to the 
 oump, and washed himself out of his hands, there being 
 no basin provided for him, as he best could, and went 
 to drill ; breakfasted substantially, then out to parade, 
 where he must be in proper trim, pipe-clay immaculate ; 
 then through the everlasting round of " Attention ! 
 Eyes right ! Stand at ease," etc. Dinner at one o'clock, 
 of broth and boiled meat, and after that nothing to do 
 till nine at night, or to eat till breakfast next morning. 
 
 Can there be any wonder that the subjects of this 
 system became so often drunkards, and ran into all sorts 
 of low dissipation, ruining themselves, soul and body? 
 Much of this evil is of course inherent and necessary ; 
 it is founded in the constitution of man that such should 
 be, in the main, the result of such an unnatural state of 
 things. But within these five-and-twenty years there 
 have been numerous improvements. The soldier is now 
 a freer, happier, healthier man, more intelligent and 
 moral, and certainly not less efficient than he ever was 
 since the institution of a standing army. 
 
 In an admirable speech in February last, when mov- 
 ing the estimates for the army, Mr. Sidney Herbert 
 made the following remark : " He did not believe 
 that at any period had the soldier been more comforta- 
 ble than at the present moment ; " he might safely have 
 said as comfortable as at the present moment. After 
 showing that, by strict and continuous vigilance in this
 
 150 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 department, in eighteen years, since 1835, " the pat- 
 tern year of economy," there had been a reduction of 
 132,766, as compared with the estimate of that year, 
 while, for the smaller sum, we maintained 21,000 men 
 more, the cost of each man being 42, 15s. lid. in 1835, 
 and in the present year 40, 3s. 6d., 10 of this being 
 for the cost of the officers, making the expense of each 
 private 30, 3s. 6d. ; after making this exposition of the 
 greater economy in the production and maintenance of 
 our soldiers, Mr. Herbert went on to show that this 
 had been effected not only without in any way curtailing 
 their comforts, but with an immense increase in their 
 material and moral wellbeing. We shall mention some 
 of the more marked causes and proofs of this gratifying 
 and remarkable improvement in the condition of the 
 army, as regards the intelligence, morality, health, and 
 general condition of the common soldier. 
 
 1st, The Good- Conduct Pay has been increased to 
 65,000 a year. Formerly, every man got an increase 
 of pay for long service ; now he gets Id. a day added to 
 his pay at the end of every five years it was at first 
 seven provided he has been clear of the defaulter's 
 books for two years, and he carries one-half of it to his 
 pension, in addition to the amount he is entitled to for 
 length of service. This scheme is working well. 
 
 2d, Barrack Libraries have been instituted, and 
 with signal benefit. There are now 150 libraries., with 
 117,000 volumes, and 16,000 subscribers, the men giv- 
 ing a penny a month. 
 
 3d, Regimental Schools, remodelled by Mr. Herbert, 
 whose plans were excellently carried out by Lord Pan- 
 mure. After encountering much prejudice and objec- 
 tion, this plan is going on prosperously. There are now
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 161 
 
 employed with different corps, sixty trained masters and 
 sixteen assistants, a class of men very different from the 
 old schoolmaster-sergeant. In the 77th Regiment, the 
 school-roll amounts to 538 adults ; the 35th, to 371 ; the 
 82d, to 270. This attendance is voluntary, and is paid 
 for ; the only compulsory attendance being in the case 
 of recruits, so long as drilling lasts. 
 ^ 4th, Savings' Banks, established in 1844. In 1852, 
 /ae number of depositors was 9447 ; the amount depos- 
 ited, 111,920. 
 
 5th, Diminution of Punishments. In 1838, the 
 number of corporal punishments was 879; in 1851, 
 206 ; and in 1852 the return being for the troops at 
 home, and half the force on foreign stations they were 
 as low as 96, and all this without the slightest relaxa- 
 tion of discipline. In 1838, the number of persons tried 
 by courts-martial was in proportion to the entire effec- 
 tive force as 1 in 11^. Now, it is only 1 in 16. 
 
 6th, Increased Longevity. There never were so few 
 deaths per annum as at present. At the Mauritius and 
 Ceylon the mortality has fallen from 43 T 6 ^ to 22^ per 
 1000 nearly one-half ; and at Hong-Kong, too famous 
 for its deadly climate, more than one-half 150 to 69; 
 while, in the East and West Indies and the Cape, in 
 spite of pestilence and war, the diminution of deaths is 
 most strongly marked. Add to all this, that unlimited 
 service the legal sanction of a man selling himself for 
 life no longer exists, having been abolished in 1847 
 thanks to Lord Panmure's courage and wisdom ; and 
 we have an amount of misery, degradation, and crime 
 prevented, and of comfort, health, and workmanlike 
 efficiency gained, which it would be no easy matter to 
 estimate at its full value and degree. In the case of such
 
 152 DR. MAESHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 an immense public benefit, it is well to do our best to 
 discover in what quarter, and in what measure, as a 
 nation, whom all this concerns so deeply, our gratitude 
 and praise are due. To what, and to whom, do we owe 
 all this ? 
 
 The what is not far to seek. Under God, we owe 
 this change for the better, like so many others which we 
 are enjoying and forgetting, to that mighty agent which 
 is in our day doing such wonders, and which will yet do 
 more and greater the spirit of the age public opinion 
 of which, when so manifestly working out the highest 
 interests of man, we may conditionally, and with rever- 
 ence, say, in the words of " the Book of Wisdom," that 
 it is " the very breath of the power of God an under- 
 standing spirit kind to man, ready to do good, one 
 only, yet manifold, not subject to hurt, which cannot be 
 letted." This great social element, viewless, impalpa- 
 ble, inevitable, untamable as the wind ; vital, elastic, all- 
 penetrating, all-encompassing as the air we breathe, the 
 very soul of the body politic, is like the great laws of 
 nature of which, indeed, it is itself one for ever at 
 its work ; and like its Divine Author and Guide goes 
 about continually doing good. Without it, what could 
 any man, any government, do for the real good of man- 
 kind ? It cannot be letted. If you are against it, get 
 out of its way as you best can, and stand aside and won- 
 der at its victorious march. But why not rather go with 
 it, and by it ? This is that tide in the affairs of men 
 a Deo ad Deum that onward movement of the race in 
 knowledge, in power, in worth, and in happiness, which 
 has gladdened and cheered all who believe, and who, 
 through long ages of gloom, and misery, and havoc, 
 have still believed that truth is strong, next to the Al-
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 153 
 
 mighty that goodness is the law of His universe, and 
 happiness its end, and who have faith in 
 
 "That God which ever lives and loves, 
 Oue God, one law, one element, 
 And one far-off Divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 It is a tide that has never turned ; unlike the poet's, 
 it answers the behest of no waning and waxing orb, it 
 follows the eye of Him who is without variableness or 
 the shadow of turning. And no man has yet taken it at 
 its flood. It has its flux and reflux, its ebb and flow, its 
 darkness and its bright light, its storm and calm ; and, 
 as a child who watched the rising tide, and saw the 
 wave in the act of withdrawing itself, might, if it saw 
 no more, say the sea was retreating, so with the world's 
 progress in liberty, happiness, and virtue ; some may 
 think its best is over, its fulness past, its ebb far on ; but 
 let the child look again let the patriot be of good 
 cheer, and watch for the next wave, it may be a ninth, 
 curling his monstrous head and hanging it how it 
 sweeps higher up the beach, tosses aside as very little 
 things, into ruin and oblivion, or passes clear over them, 
 the rocks and the noisy bulwarks of man's device, which 
 had for long fretted and turned aside and baffled all for- 
 mer waves ; and to the historic eye, these once formida- 
 ble barriers may be seen far down in the clear waters, 
 nndisturbing and undisturbed the deep covering them, 
 it may be seen what they really were, how little or 
 how big. If our readers wish to imagine how the power 
 of public opinion, this tide of time, deals with its ene- 
 mies and with its friends how it settles its quarrels 
 and attains its ends, and how, all at once and unexpect- 
 edly, it may be seen flowing in, without let or hindrance*
 
 154 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 "Whispering how meek and gentle it can be," 
 let him go down to the sea-shore, and watch the rising 
 tide, coming on lazily at first, as if without aim or pith, 
 turned aside by any rock, going round it, covering it by 
 and by, swayed and troubled by every wind, shadowed 
 by every passing cloud, as if it were the ficklest of all 
 things, and had no mind of its own ; he will, however, 
 notice, if he stays long enough, that there is one thing 
 it is always doing, the one thing it most assuredly will 
 do, and that is, to move on and up, to deepen and ex- 
 tend. So is it with the advance of truth and goodness 
 over our world. Whatever appearances may be, let us 
 rest assured the tide is making, and is on its way to its 
 fulness. 
 
 We are aware that in speaking of such matters, it is 
 not easy to avoid exaggeration both in thought and ex- 
 pression ; but we may go wrong, not less by feeling and 
 speaking too little, than by feeling and speaking too 
 much. It is profane and foolish to deify public opinion, 
 or, indeed, anything; but it is not right, it is not safe to 
 err on the other side, to ignore and vilipend. In one 
 sense, public opinion is a very commonplace subject ; iu 
 another, it is one of the chiefest of the ways of God, 
 one of the most signal instruments in his hand, for mov- 
 ing on to their consummation his undisturbed affairs. 
 There never was a time in the world's history, and there? 
 never was a nation, in which this mighty agent made 
 head as it is doing now, and in ours. Everywhere and 
 over every department of human suffering and need, it 
 is to be found arising with healing under its wings. 
 That it goes wrong and does wrong is merely to say 
 that it works by human means; but that in the main it 
 fe on the right road and on the right errand, and thaf
 
 DR. MARSHALL AXD MILITARY HYGIENE. 155 
 
 thus far it is Divine, and has in it the very breath of the 
 power of God, no man, surely, who discerns the times 
 and the seasons will deny ; to use the eloquent words of 
 Maurice : " In a civilized country above all, in one 
 which possesses a free press there is a certain power, 
 mysterious and indefinite in its operations, but producing 
 the most obvious and mighty effects, which we call pub- 
 lic opinion. It is vague, indefinite, intangible enough, 
 no doubt; but is not that the case with all the powers 
 which affect us most in the physical world ? The further 
 men advance in the study of nature, the more these in- 
 controllable, invincible forces make themselves known. 
 If we think with some of mysterious affinities, of some 
 one mighty principle which binds the elements of the 
 universe together, why should we not wonder, also, at 
 these moral affinities, this more subtle magnetism, which 
 bears witness that every man is connected by the most 
 intimate bonds with his neighbor, and that no one can 
 live independently of another ? " 
 
 We believe that in the future, and it may be not very 
 far-off history of our world, this associative principle, 
 this attractive, quickening power, is destined to work 
 wonders in its own region, to which the marvels of phys- 
 ical science in our days will be as nothing. Society, as 
 a great normal institute of human nature, is a power 
 whose capacities in its own proper sphere of action, such 
 as it now exhibits, or has ever exhibited, and such as it 
 is destined hereafter to exhibit, are to each other as is 
 the weight, the momentum of a drop of water, to the 
 energy of that drop converted into steam and compressed 
 and set a-working. We believe this' will be one of the 
 crowning discoveries and glories of our race, about which, 
 as usual, we have been long enough, and of which, when
 
 156 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 it comes, every one will say, " How did we never dis- 
 cover that before ? how easy ; how simple ! " Soci- 
 ety is of the essence of unfallen man ; it is normal ; it 
 preceded and will survive the loss of Eden ; it belongs 
 to the physiology of human nature. Government, be 
 it of the best, must always have to do (and the more 
 strictly the better) with its pathology with its fall. 
 Were original sin abolished to-morrow, the necessity, the 
 very materials of Government would cease. Society 
 and all her immense capabilities would once more be 
 at home, and full of life, and go on her way rejoicing. 
 Education, religion, and many other things, all belong 
 by right and by natural fitness to Society ; and Govern- 
 ment has been trying for thousands of years to do her 
 work and its own, and has, as a matter of course, bun- 
 gled both. 
 
 But we have less to do at present with this wonder- 
 working power, than with those who were the first to 
 direct and avail themselves of it, for forwarding and se- 
 curing the welfare of the common soldier, who had been 
 so long shut out from its beneficent impulse. 
 
 These men, simple-minded, public-hearted, industrious, 
 resolute, did not work for gratitude they would not 
 have worked the worse, however, with it. They are 
 gone elsewhere, where no gratitude of ours can affect 
 them ; but it is not the less right, and good, and needful 
 for that great creature, the public, to be made to feel 
 this gratitude, and to let it go forth in hearty acknowl- 
 edgment. This is a state of mind which blesses quite as 
 much him who gives, as him who receives ; and nothing 
 would tend more to keep the public heart right, and the 
 public conscience quick and powerful, than doing our 
 best to discover what we owe, and to whom ; and as
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 157 
 
 members of the body politic, let our affection and admi- 
 ration take their free course. One of the best signs of 
 our times is the extension, and deepening, and clarifying 
 of this sense of public duty, of our living not for our- 
 selves, of what we owe to those who have served their 
 generation the practical recognition, in a word, not 
 only that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, but 
 that, according to the interpretation of the word reserved 
 for the Divine Teacher, every man is our neighbor. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of any amelioration in the 
 moral condition and bodily comforts of the soldier must 
 of necessity be great, and all experience confirms this. 
 A body of men such as, in a country like ours, a stand- 
 ing army with service for life, and pay below the wages 
 of the laboring classes, must unavoidably consist of, is 
 one the reform of which might deter and dishearten any 
 man, and excuse most. How often have we been told 
 that flogging was a necessary evil ; that unlimited ser- 
 vice was the stay of the army ; that knowledge would 
 make the men discontented, useless, and mischievous ! 
 "Soldiers," said Mr. Pulteney in 1732, "are a body of 
 men distinct from the body of the people ; they are gov 
 erned by different laws. Blind obedience is their only 
 principle." Bruce, in his Institutions of Military Law, 
 1717, gives what we doubt not was a true account of 
 the composition of European armies in his day : "If 
 all infamous persons, and such as have committed capital 
 crimes, heretics, atheists, (!) and all dastardly and effem- 
 inate men, were weeded out of the army, it would soon 
 be reduced to a pretty moderate number, the greater 
 part of the soldiery being men of so ignoble, disingenu- 
 ous tempers, that they cannot be made obedient to the 
 allurements of rewards ; nay, coercion being, generally
 
 158 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 speaking, the surest principle of all vulgar obedience. 
 There is, therefore," he grimly adds, " another part of 
 military institution fitted to such men's capacities, and 
 these are the various punishments " (and such a cata- 
 logue of horrors !) " awarded to their crimes, which, as 
 goads, may drive these brutish creatures who will not be 
 attracted" 1 We are now at last trying the principle of 
 attraction, and are finding it succeeds here, as it does 
 elsewhere keeping all thing sweet and strong, from 
 the majestic ordinances of heaven, to the guidance of a 
 village school. It is too true that Lord Melville in 1808, 
 in his place in the House of Lords, when opposing Mr. 
 Wyndham's most humane and judicious Army Bill, said, 
 " the worst men make the best soldiers ; " and if we look 
 back on the history of the army, the degradations, the 
 miseries, and hardships of the common soldier, we can- 
 not help inferring that this monstrous dogma had been 
 even improved upon, so as to reduce to their lowest the 
 characteristics of humanity, and resolve his entire nature 
 into a compound of strength and stupidity. With such 
 opinions as Lord Melville's prevailing in civil, and not 
 less hi military life, it was no easy matter to set up as a 
 military reformer. If the worst man made the best 
 soldier, it was a contradiction in terms to think of mak- 
 ing the man in any degree better. The converse was 
 the logical sequence ; to find the worst man, and by all 
 means make him a worser still. Things are changed, 
 and have been changing; and that humane spirit, that 
 sense of responsibility as regards the happiness and wel- 
 
 1 This -was not the principle of one of the greatest of men and of 
 soldiers. Cicero says of Julius Caesar, there was never an ITO in his 
 sommands, but only a VEXI, as if he scorned to be less or more than 
 their leader.
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 159 
 
 fare of our fellow-men on which we have already en- 
 larged, and which is one of the most signal blessings of 
 our time, has penetrated into this region, and Lord Mel 
 ville's dogma is in the fair way of being overthrown and 
 reversed. It is now no longer legal for a British subject 
 to sell himself, body and soul, for life. For this we 
 have mainly to thank Lord Panmure, one of the ablest 
 and best secretaries the War Office has ever seen. But 
 while we most heartily acknowledge the great services 
 of Lord Hardinge, Lord Grey, Mr. Ellice, Sir George 
 Arthur, Sir Charles Napier, Colonel Lindsay, Lord 
 Panmure, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and many others, in urg- 
 ing and carrying out all these ameliorations and re- 
 forms ; and while we cannot easily overrate the value 
 of the labors of Lieutenant-Colonel Tulloch and Dr. 
 Graham Balfour in working out the vital statistics of 
 the army, and demonstrating their practical bearing on 
 the prevention of misery and crime and death, and the 
 increased comfort and efficiency of the service ; we are, 
 we feel sure, only saying what every one of these public- 
 spirited men will be readiest to confirm, that to the late 
 Dr. Henry Marshall is due the merit of having been the 
 first in this great field, the sower of the seed the 
 setter agoing of this current of research and reform 
 which has achieved so much. There is not one of these 
 many improvements which he did not, in his own quiet, 
 but steady and unflinching way, argue for, and urge, and 
 commend, and prove, many years before they were ac- 
 knowledged or taken up by the higher authorities. We 
 find him, when a mere lad, at the Cape, in the begin- 
 ning of the century, making out tables of the diseases of 
 the soldiers, of the comparative health of different sta- 
 Uons and ages and climates ; investigating the relation
 
 160 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 of degradation, ignorance, crime, and ill-usage, to the 
 efficiency of the army and to its cost ; and from that 
 time to the last day of his life devoting his entire ener- 
 gies to devising and doing good to the common soldier. 
 And all this, to say the least of it, without much assist- 
 ance from his own department (the medical), till the 
 pleasant time came when the harvest was to be reaped, 
 and the sheaves taken victoriously home. 
 
 " Have you seen Marshall's Miscellany ? " said a 
 friend to Lord Panmure, when he was Secretary at 
 "War. " Seen it ! " exclaimed he, " why, Marshall's 
 book is my Bible in all that relates to the welfare of the 
 soldier." And it is not less honorable to our late Com- 
 mander-in-Chief than to Dr. Marshall, that when pre- 
 sented by the author with a copy of this book, his Lord- 
 ship said, "Your book should be in the hands of every 
 army surgeon, and in every orderly-room in the service." 
 Any man who knows what the army is and was, and 
 what the prejudices of the best military men often were, 
 and who has also read thoroughly the work we refer 
 to, and has weighed well all it is for, and all it is against, 
 and all that it proves, will agree with us in saying, 
 that for Lord Hardinge to express, and for Dr. Marshall 
 to deserve, such a compliment, is no small honor to both. 
 
 Dr. Marshall, to have done so much good, made the 
 least noise about it of any public man we ever knew. 
 He was eminently quiet in all his ways ; the very re- 
 verse of your loud man ; he made no spasmodic efforts, 
 he did nothing by fits or starts, nothing for effect ; he 
 flowed on incredibili lenitate, with a ceaseless and clear 
 but powerful flow. He was a philosopher without know- 
 ing it, and without many others knowing it ; but, if to 
 (race effects up to their causes, to bring good out of evil^
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 161 
 
 and order out of confusion, to increase immensely the 
 happiness of his fellow-men, be wisdom, and the love of 
 it, then was this good man a philosopher indeed. 
 
 Henry Marshall was born in the parish of Kilsyth in 
 1775. His father was a man of singular simplicity and 
 worth, and besides his own excellent example, and in 
 spite of his slender means, he gave both his sons a col- 
 lege education. In May 1803, Henry became surgeon's 
 mate in the royal navy, a service he left in September 
 1804 ; and in January 1805 was appointed assistant- 
 surgeon to the Forfarshire regiment of militia. In 
 April 1806, he became assistant-surgeon to the first bat- 
 talion of the 89th regiment, which embarked in Febru- 
 ary 1807 for South America, thence to the Cape of 
 Good Hope and Ceylon. In May 1809, he was ap- 
 pointed assistant-surgeon to the 2d Ceylon Regiment, 
 and in April 1813, was promoted to be surgeon of the 
 1st Ceylon Regiment. In December of the same year 
 he was removed to the staff, but continued to serve in 
 the island till the spring of 1821, when he returned 
 home ; and soon after his arrival he was appointed to 
 the staff of North Britain, his station being Edinburgh. 
 
 We shall now give a short account of his principal 
 writings, and of the effect they had in attaining the 
 great object of his long and active life, which, in his 
 own words, was " to excite attention to the means which 
 may meliorate the condition of the soldier, and exalt his 
 moral and intellectual character." 
 
 1817. "Description of the Laurus Cinnamomum," 
 read before the Royal Society at the request of Sir Jo- 
 seph Banks, and published in the Annals of Philosophy 
 of that year. 
 
 1821. "Notes on the Medical Topography of the 
 11
 
 162 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 interior of Ceylon, and on the Health of the Troops 
 employed in the Provinces during the years 1815 to 
 1820, with brief Remarks on the prevailing Diseases." 
 London, 1821. 8vo, pp. 228. The great merit of this 
 little book consisted in the numerical statistics it con- 
 tains regarding the mortality and diseases of the troops 
 a new feature in medical works at the time it was 
 published. 
 
 His next publication was in 1823. "Observations 
 on the Health of the Troops in North Britain, during a 
 period of Seven years, from 1816 to 1822." London 
 Medical and Physical Journal The numerical portion 
 of these observations was an attempt, and at the same 
 time a novel one, to collect and arrange the facts illus- 
 trative of the amount of sickness and the ratio of mor- 
 tality among a body of troops for a specific period. 
 
 In November 1823, Dr. Marshall was removed from 
 Edinburgh to Chatham, and in April 1825, was ap- 
 pointed to the recruiting depot, Dublin. In 1826, he 
 published " Practical Observations on the Inspection of 
 Recruits, including Observations on Feigned Diseases." 
 Edin. Med. and Surgical Journal, vol. xxvi. p. 225. 
 
 1828. "Hints to Young Medical Officers of the 
 Army on the Examination of Recruits and the Feigned 
 Disabilities of Soldiers." London, 1828. 8vo, pp. 224. 
 The official documents contained in this volume are in- 
 teresting, in as far as they show the difficulty of the 
 duty of selecting recruits, and the very limited informa- 
 tion the authorities, both military and medical, appear 
 to have had on the subject. It is full of interest even 
 to the general reader, opening up one of the most sin- 
 gular and most painful manifestations of human charac- 
 ter, and affording the strongest proofs of the inherent
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 163 
 
 misery and degradation of the life of the British com- 
 mon soldier. In reading it, it is difficult to know which 
 to wonder most at the despair and misery that must 
 prompt, the ingenuity that can invent, and the dogged 
 resolution that can carry out into prolonged execution, 
 and under every species of trial, the endless fictions of 
 every conceivable kind therein described ; or the shrewd- 
 ness, the professional sagacity, and the indomitable 
 energy with which Dr. Marshall detects, and gives to 
 others the means of detecting, these refuges of lies. 
 This was the first, and still is the best work in our lan- 
 guage on this subject ; the others are mere compilations, 
 indebted to Dr. Marshall for their facts and practical 
 suggestions. 
 
 In January 1828, Sir Henry (afterwards Viscount) 
 Hardinge was appointed Secretary at War. One of the 
 numerous important subjects connected with the admin- 
 istration of the war department which early engaged 
 his attention was the large and rapidly increasing pen- 
 sion list. For a period of several months he labored 
 hard to obtain information on the practical working of 
 the existing pensioning warrants, chiefly from the un- 
 satisfactory documents found at Chelsea Hospital. He 
 soon discovered many abuses in the system then in oper- 
 ation. As a means of helping him to abate the abuses 
 in question, he directed a Medical Board to assemble, of 
 which Dr. Marshall was appointed a member, the spe- 
 cific duty of the Board being as follows : " For the 
 purpose of revising the regulations which relate to the 
 business of examining and deciding upon the cases of 
 Boldiers recommended for discharge from the service." 
 '* The object of the proposed inquiry is to ascertain what 
 description of disabilities ought to be pensioned, and
 
 164 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 what not." The pension list at this time stood as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 19,065 pensioners, at 6d. a day, average age thirty-one 
 years ; alleged causes of being discharged, in- 
 juries or bad health. 
 
 16,630 at 9d. a day, for service and disability combined. 
 
 21,095 at Is. a day, for length of service and wounds. 
 1,100 at Is. 9d., blind. 
 
 27,625 no causes of disability assigned. 
 
 85,515 
 
 The list had increased greatly during a period of 
 peace, and it was annually increasing. The mean rate of 
 pension was 10|d., and the annual amount 1,436,663 ; 
 the annual rate of mortality among the pensioners being 
 about four per cent. 
 
 During the sitting of the Board, Dr. Marshall collected 
 some practical information on the pensioning question ; 
 and on returning to Dublin, in December 1828, he drew 
 up a comprehensive scheme for pensioning soldiers, upon 
 what he considered improved principles. Under the 
 title of " Cursory Observations on the Pensioning of Sol- 
 diers," he forwarded his scheme to Lord Hardinge ; and 
 he had the satisfaction of finding that a new pension 
 warrant was made, founded on the same principles as his 
 " Scheme," namely, 1st, length of service ; 2rf, wounds 
 received before the enemy ; 3d, greatly impaired health 
 after fifteen years' service; 4^, anomalous disabilities, 
 special cases, which require to be particularly considered. 
 By Mr. Wyndham's Act of 1806, every man who was 
 discharged as disabled was entitled to a pension for life, 
 without reference to the time he had served ; and, by 
 the subsequent amendments and alterations, disabilities
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 165 
 
 and not service constituted the .chief claim for a pension. 
 This mode of obtaining a pension opened a wide door 
 for fraud of various kinds. 
 
 The Pensioning Warrant of the Secretary at War 
 went through a number of editions, both in manuscript 
 and in print. 
 
 In 1829, Dr. Marshall published "Observations on 
 the Pensioning of Soldiers." United Service Journal, 
 1829, part ii. p. 317. This paper has a peculiar inter- 
 est, inasmuch as it gives an account of the frauds which 
 had been committed in the army by the erasure and 
 alteration of figures, and which had only lately been dis- 
 covered. The falsification of records by this means was 
 found, upon investigation, to have been practised to a 
 considerable extent in almost every regiment in the ser- 
 vice. 
 
 1829. " Historical Notes on Military Pensions." 
 United Service Journal. 
 
 1830. "Notes on Military Pensions." United 
 Service Journal. 
 
 Early in 1830, Dr. Marshall communicated to Lord 
 Hardinge a paper on the abuse of intoxicating liquors 
 by the European troops in India, and on the impolicy 
 of uniformly and indiscriminately issuing spirit rations 
 to soldiers. An abstract of this paper was subsequently 
 published under the following title : 
 
 1830. "Observations on the Abuse of Spirituous 
 Liquors by the European Troops in India, and of the 
 Impolicy of uniformly and indiscriminately issuing Spirit 
 Rations to Soldiers." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical 
 Journal, vol. xli. p. 10. 
 
 Lord Hardinge carried into effect the suggestions 
 contained in this paper with remarkable promptitude;
 
 166 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 indeed, it would be difficult to praise too highly his 
 Lordship's conduct in this matter, whether in regard to 
 his discrimination in perceiving and appreciating the 
 evils of the usage, his firmness in abolishing it at once, 
 or his wisdom and courage in surmounting the preju- 
 dices of a large portion of all ranks in the army. Within 
 a week after he received it, he had commenced measures 
 to abolish the indiscriminate issue of spirit rations to sol- 
 diers on board ship.and on foreign stations. So long as 
 a quantity of spirits, amounting to about six or seven 
 ounces (in India it was the 20th part of a gallon), formed 
 part of the regular diet or daily ration of a soldier which 
 he was obliged to swallow or to throw away, what ra- 
 tional hope could be entertained that the exertions of 
 commanding officers, however well directed, would have 
 much effect in checking drunkenness ? The indiscrimi- 
 nate daily use of spirits is not necessary for the efficiency 
 or health of troops in any climate, and their abuse is 
 a fertile source of disabilities, diseases, and crimes, both 
 moral and military. To drink daily nearly half a pint 
 of spirits was then a part of the duty of a soldier ; and 
 that this duty might be effectually executed, it was the 
 usage of the service, in many stations, to have it per- 
 formed under the superintendence of a commissioned 
 officer, who certified to his commanding officer that he 
 had witnessed each man drink his dram or ration of 
 spirits. Perhaps a more successful plan for converting 
 temperate men into drunkards could not have been in- 
 vented. 
 
 During 1829, Dr. Marshall was attached to the War 
 Office, and in 1830, he was promoted to the rank of 
 deputy-inspector of hospitals by Lord Hardinge. Here 
 ended his active service in the army, and he was placed 
 <m half -pay.
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 167 
 
 Shortly after the promulgation of the instructions for 
 the guidance of medical officers in the duty of examin- 
 ing recruits, which were drawn up by Dr. Marshall, 
 and were the result of a most laborious and difficult in- 
 quiry, it occurred to Lord Hardinge, that the publica- 
 tion of this document, together with the pensioning 
 warrant, and other relative papers, accompanied by a 
 suitable commentary, would be useful, in the form of 
 a small volume, for the information of officers of the 
 army ; with this object, Dr. Marshall published in 
 
 1832. "On the Enlisting, the Discharging, and the 
 Pensioning of Soldiers, with the Official Documents on 
 these Branches of Military Duty." London, 1832. 8vo, 
 pp. 243. 
 
 In the summer of this year, Dr. Marshall married 
 Anne, eldest daughter of James "Wingate, Esq. of West- 
 shiels. This union was, as we often said, the best earthly 
 blessing of a long and happy life. 
 
 1833. " Contributions to Statistics of the Army, 
 with some Observations on Military Medical Returns. 
 No. I." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 
 vol. xl. p. 36. 
 
 It would be a work of supererogation for us to say one 
 word in favor of military statistics, as a means of illus- 
 trating the condition of an army. For some time, how- 
 ever, after the publication of this paper, the utility of 
 condensing and arranging medical returns was but very 
 partially recognized ; and Dr. Marshall's " array " of 
 figures was laughed and sneered at by some who ought 
 to have known better. 
 
 1833. "Contributions to Statistics of the Army. 
 No. II." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 
 vol. xl. p. 307.
 
 168 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 1834. "Sketch of the Geographical Distribution 
 of Diseases." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Jour- 
 nal, vol. xxxviii. p. 330. 
 
 1834. "Abstract of the Returns of the Sick of the 
 Troops belonging to the Presidency of Fort -George, 
 Madras, for the years 1827 to 1830." Edinburgh 
 Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. xxxix. p. 133. 
 
 1834. "On the Mortality of the Infantry of the 
 French Army." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Jour- 
 nal, vol. xlii. p. 34. 
 
 1835. " Observations on the Influence of a Tropical 
 Climate upon the Constitution and Health of natives of 
 Great Britain." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Jour- 
 nal, vol. xliv. p. 28. 
 
 1835. "Contributions to Statistics of the British 
 A my. No. III." Edinburgh Medical and Surgicai 
 Journal, vol. xliv. p. 353. 
 
 In 1835, Dr. Marshall, along with Sir A. M. Tulloch 
 (who has done such excellent service since) was ap- 
 pointed to investigate the statistics of the sickness, mor- 
 tality, and invaliding of the British army. Their report 
 on the sickness, mortality, and invaliding among the 
 troops in the West Indies was laid before Parliament 
 the following year. 
 
 This report produced a change which was nothing 
 short of a revolution in this department of military pol- 
 ty ; it destroyed the old established notion of seasoning. 
 The period of service in Jamaica used to be nine or ten 
 years ; this is now divided between it and the Medi- 
 terranean stations and British America. The reason 
 alleged for keeping them so long, in so notoriously un- 
 healthy a station, was the military and medical fallacy, 
 that Europeans by length of residence became " sea-
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 169 
 
 soned." This fallacy, which had been the source of so 
 much misery, and crime, and death, and expense, was 
 completely dissipated by these statistical returns, from 
 which it was found that (as in every other case) mortal- 
 ity depended upon age, and that young soldiers lived 
 longer there than older ones, however " seasoned " by 
 residence or disease. The annual mortality of the 
 troops in Jamaica was thirteen in the hundred by the 
 medical returns, but the actual mortality amounted to 
 about two per cent, more, a mortality of which we may 
 give some idea, by stating that a soldier serving one year 
 in Jamaica encountered as much risk of life as in six 
 such actions as Waterloo, there one in forty fell, in 
 Jamaica one in seven annually. No wonder that the 
 poor soldier, knowing that eight or nine years must 
 elapse before he left this deadly place, and seeing a 
 seventh comrade die every year, lost all hope, mind and 
 body equally broken down, and sank into drunkenness 
 and an earlier grave. He eventually concluded, that it 
 is a glorious climate where a man is always " dry " and 
 has always plenty to drink. Another evil pointed out by 
 this able report was that produced by the use of salted 
 provisions. This practice was immediately changed. It 
 also brought to light a curious and important fact, that 
 in the barracks situated at Maroon Town, Jamaica, 2000 
 feet above the sea, the annual mortality was only 32 per 
 1000, while at Up-Park Camp, nearly on the level of 
 the sea, it was 140 per 1000. The knowledge of this 
 extraordinary, but till the report, undiscovered fact, 1 has 
 been acted upon with eminent benefit ; so much so, that, 
 had it been known during the seventeen years previ- 
 ously, the lives of 1387 men, and 27,740, might have 
 1 See Note at the end of this Paper.
 
 170 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 been saved. "We never met with a more remarkable in- 
 stance of the practical effects of statistics. 1 
 
 1837. "Contribution to Statistics of the Sickness 
 and Mortality which occurred among the Troops em- 
 ployed on the Expedition to the Scheldt, in the year 
 1809." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 
 xlviii. p. 305. 
 
 1839. " Contribution to Statistics of Hernia among 
 Recruits for the British, and Conscripts for the French 
 Army." Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 
 1. p. 15. 
 
 1839. "On the Enlisting, Discharging, and Pen- 
 sioning of Soldiers, with the Official Documents on 
 these branches of Military Duty." Second Edition. 
 Edinburgh, 1839. 
 
 1846. " Military Miscellany." 8vo. London, 1846. 
 
 This most entertaining and effective book is a com- 
 plete epitome of its author's mind and character ; it has 
 something of everything that was peculiar to him. Al- 
 though dissuaded by his military friends with only 
 one exception from publishing it, as being likely to 
 produce dissatisfaction in the ranks, and offend com- 
 manding officers ; no such effect followed, but the re- 
 verse. It is, as its name denotes, not so much a treatise, 
 as a body of multifarious evidence, enabling any man of 
 ordinary humanity and sense to make up his mind on 
 *he various questions handled in it, Recruiting en- 
 listment moral and physicial qualities of recruits 
 duration of engagement suicide in the army, its greater 
 frequency than in civil life, and the reason of this 
 
 1 Any one wishing a fuller account of this memorable experiment 
 and its results will find it in an admirable paper by Sir A. M. Tul- 
 loch, K. C. B., read before the Statistical Society in 1847.
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 171 
 
 punishments rewards vices and virtues of soldiers 
 pensions education; these, and such like, are the 
 subjects which are not so much discussed, as exhibited 
 and proved. At the time the Miscellany came out, 
 many things concurred in rapidly promoting its great 
 end. The public mind having been enlightened on the 
 evils of flogging in the army, and of perpetual service, 
 was bestirring itself in its own rough and vague but 
 energetic way; there was a "clamour" on these sub- 
 jects ; Dr. Fergusson's eloquent and able though some- 
 what exaggerative " Notes and Reminiscences of Pro- 
 fessional Life," published after his death, advocated 
 much the same views as Dr. Marshall, and three elabor- 
 ate and powerful articles in the Times on these two 
 books and their subjects, written with great ability and 
 tact, had excited the attention of the nation, when this 
 was brought to its operative point, by one of those de- 
 plorable incidents out of which not seldom comes imme- 
 diate and great good ; the sort of event which beyond 
 all others rouses the British people and makes it act as 
 one man, and in this case, fortunately, they were well 
 informed before being roused. The first of the three 
 articles in the Times appeared on the 2d of July 1846, 
 and straightway, as a practical lecture concludes by 
 the exhibition of a crucial and decisive experiment, 
 on the llth of the same month a soldier died at ITouns- 
 low, apparently from the effects of punishment inflicted 
 in the previous month. This sealed the fate of the 
 flogging system. The idea of Frederick John White 
 of the 7th Hussars, "a brave fellow, who walked away 
 whistling," and was said to be "gentlemanly, affable, 
 and mild," dying of flogging at John Bull's very door, 
 was too much for John and his family, and one of the
 
 172 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 things he could stand no longer. The Commander-in- 
 Chief instantly directed that henceforth fifty lashes 
 should be the maximum. At the time, much of this re- 
 sult was attributed, in the public prints and in Parlia- 
 ment, to Dr. Marshall's book. Next session of Parlia- 
 ment more was done for bettering the lot of the common 
 soldier. 1 The present Lord Panmure introduced a bill 
 into Parliament, limiting the period for which a soldier 
 enlists to twelve years in the cavalry and ordnance, and 
 ten in the infantry, instead of as formerly for life, which, 
 after considerable discussion, was passed ; continual ref- 
 erence was made in the debates to the Miscellany, and 
 its author had the satisfaction of witnessing the com- 
 pletion of those cardinal ameliorations. We cannot 
 convey a juster idea of this homely, unpretending vol- 
 ume, than in the generous words of a distinguished Bel- 
 gian physician (M. Fallot) : " C'est 1'ouvrage d'un 
 homme possedant parfaitement la matiere, ayant passe 
 la plus grande partie de sa vie a etudier le caractere, 
 les moeurs et les besoins des soldats au milieu desquels 
 il vivait et au bien-etre desquels il avait voue son exist- 
 ence. Ayant autant d'ele'vation dans les vues que d'in- 
 dependance dans 1'esprit, il a aper$u les defauts partout 
 ou ils existaient, et a eu le courage de les mettre a nu 
 et de les signaler. A ceux qui craindraient que le me"- 
 
 1 The sale of spirituous liquors in canteens was abolished at this 
 time, and with the very best results. Colonel the Hon. James Lind- 
 say, M. P., has the merit of having contributed mainly to the removal 
 of this crying evil. His speech on moving for an inquiry into the 
 canteen system is a model of the manner in which such subjects 
 Bhould be handled clear, compact, soldier-like. He makes the fol- 
 .owing just, but often overlooked distinction " He believed it would 
 not be difficult to show, that though an habitual drunkard and an 1mb 
 itual drinker were two different things, the one was as great an ex 
 pense to the country as the other."
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 173 
 
 moire ne fut trop serieux ou trop monotone, je dois dire 
 que la foule d'anecdotes piquantes, de citations heureu^es 
 et opportunes, dont le memoire est seme, reposent et 
 distraient agreablement 1'esprit du lecteur." 
 
 Dr. Marshall's last publication on military subjects 
 was in 1849 "Suggestions for the Advancement of 
 Military Medical Literature." These were his parting 
 ,Vords for the service he had devoted the energies of a 
 iOng lifetime to a sort of legacy bequeathed to those 
 who were going forward in the same good work. He 
 was then laboring under a mortal disease, one of the 
 most painful and terrible to which our flesh is heir of 
 its real nature and only termination he was, with his 
 usual sagacity, aware from the first, and yet with all 
 this, we never got a kinder welcome, never saw one 
 more cheerful, or more patient in listening to what con- 
 cerned only others. He used to say, " This is bad, very 
 bad, in its own way as bad as can be, but everything 
 else is good : my home is happy ; my circumstances are 
 good ; I always made a little more than I spent, and it 
 has gathered of course ; my life has been long, happy, 
 busy, and I trust useful, and I have had my fill of it; I 
 have lived to see things accomplished, which I desired, 
 ardently longed for, fifty years ago, but hardly hoped 
 ever to see." With that quiet, rational courage, which 
 was one of his chief but hidden qualities, he possessed 
 his soul in patience in the midst of intense suffering, 
 and continued to enjoy and to use life for its best pur- 
 poses to the last. 
 
 Of religion, and especially of his own religion, he was 
 not in the habit of speaking much ; when he did, it was 
 shortly and to the purpose, and in a way which made 
 every one feel that the root of the matter was in him.
 
 174 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 His views of God, of sin, and of himself, and his relation 
 to his Maker and the future, were of the simplest and 
 most operative kind. When in Ceylon, and living much 
 alone, away from religious books arid ordinances, and 
 religious talk, and controversy, and quarrel, away also 
 from that religiosity which is one of the curses of our 
 time, he studied his New Testament, and in this, as 
 in every other matter, made up his mind for himself. 
 Not that he avoided religious conversation, but he seemed 
 never to get over the true sacredness of anything con- 
 nected with his own personal religion. It was a favorite 
 expression of his, that religion resolved itself into won- 
 der and gratitude intelligent wonder; humble and ac- 
 tive gratitude such wonder and such gratitude as the 
 New Testament calls forth. 
 
 Dr. Marshall, as may readily be supposed, was not 
 what the world calls a genius ; had he been one, he prob- 
 ably would not have done what he did. Yet he was a 
 man of a truly original mind ; he had his own way of 
 saying and doing everything ; he had a knack of taking 
 things at first-hand ; he was original, inasmuch as he con 
 trived to do many things nobody else had done; a sort 
 of originality worth a good deal of "original genius." 
 And like all men of a well-mixed, ample, and genial 
 nature, he was a humorist of his own and that a very 
 genuine kind; his short stories, illustrative of some great 
 principle in morals or in practical life, were admirable 
 and endless in number ; if he had not been too busy 
 about more serious matters, he might have filled a vol- 
 ume with anecdotes, every one of them at once true and 
 new, and always setting forth and pointing some vital 
 truth. Curiously enough, it was in this homely humor 
 that the strength aud the consciousness of strength.
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 175 
 
 which one might not have expected from his mild man- 
 ner and his spare and fragile frame, came out ; his sa- 
 tire, his perfect appreciation of the value and size of 
 those he had in view, and his " pawky " intuition into 
 the motives aud secret purposes of men, who little 
 thought they were watched by such an eye, was one 
 of the most striking and gravely comic bits of the mental 
 oicturesque ; it was like Mind looking at and taking the 
 measure and the weight of Body, and Body standing by 
 grandly unconscious and disclosed ; and hence it was 
 that, though much below the average height, no one felt 
 as if he were little he was any man's match. His 
 head and eye settled the matter; he had a large, com- 
 pact, commanding brain, and an eye singularly intelli- 
 gent, inevitable, and calm. 
 
 Dr. Marshall .died on the 5th May 1851, at Edin- 
 burgh, where he had for many years lived. Though out 
 of the service, he was constantly occupied with some 
 good work, keeping all his old friends, and making new 
 and especially young ones, over whom he had a singular 
 power ; he had no children, but he had the love of a 
 father for many a youth, and the patience of a father 
 too. In his married life, to use his own words, " I' got 
 what I was in search of for forty years, and I got this 
 at the very time it was best for me, and I found it to be 
 better and more than I ever during these forty long 
 years had hoped for." 
 
 Had such a man as Dr. Marshall appeared in France, 
 or indeed anywhere else than in Britain, he would have 
 been made a Baron at the least. He did not die the less 
 contented that he was not ; and we must suppose, that 
 there is some wise though inscrutable final cause why 
 our country, in such cases, makes virtue its own and
 
 176 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 only reward, and is leonum arida nutrix, a very dry 
 nurse indeed. 
 
 Besides the publications we have mentioned, in con- 
 nection with military statistics and hygiene, Dr. Mar- 
 shall published a history and description of Ceylon, 
 which, after all the numerous works on " the utmost 
 Indian isle," remains at once the shortest, the fullest, 
 and the best. He also published on the cocoa-nut tree, 
 and a sketch of the geographical distribution of disease, 
 besides many other occasional papers, in all of which he 
 makes out something at once new and true. In the 
 well-weighed words of Dr. Craigie : " He was the first 
 to show how the multiplied experience of the medical 
 officers of the British Army at home and abroad, by 
 methodical arrangement and concentration, might be ap- 
 plied by the use of computation, to furnish exact and 
 useful results in medical statistics, medical topography, 
 the geographical relations of diseases, medical hygiene, 
 and almost every other branch of military medicine. 
 Dr. Marshall must indeed be regarded as the father and 
 founder of military medical statistics, and of their varied 
 applications." We end our notice of this truly excellent 
 public servant, with his own dying words : " In many 
 respects, I consider myself one of the most fortunate in- 
 dividuals who ever belonged to the medical department 
 of the army. Through a long life I have enjoyed almost 
 uninterrupted good health, and my duties have been a 
 pleasure to me. Having generally had some literary 
 undertaking on hand, more or less connected with mill 
 tary hygiene, I have enjoyed much intellectual gratifica- 
 tion. ' To labor diligently, and to be content (says the 
 son of Sirach), is a sweet life.' My greatest delight has 
 been to promote a melioration of the condition of sol
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 177 
 
 diers, and in the prosecution of this important object, I 
 hope I have done some good. I have much reason to 
 be grateful to Divine Providence for the many blessings 
 I have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy. Although my 
 elementary education was extremely limited, my profes- 
 sional instruction defective, and my natural talents mod- 
 erate, I have no reason to complain of my progress and 
 standing in the service. Every step of advancement 
 which I gained in the army was obtained without diffi- 
 culty. When I look back upon my progress in life, it 
 seems to me that I have been led ' in a plain path,' and 
 that my steps have been ' ordered,' " 
 
 We had intended giving some account of the medical 
 military worthies who preceded Dr. Marshall, but we 
 have left ourselves no space. 
 
 Among them may be reckoned Sir John Pringle, the 
 earliest and one of the best ; * Drs. Brocklesby, the 
 
 l Sir John Pringle was truly what his epitaph in Westminster Abbey 
 calls him, egregius vir a man not of the common herd; a man in ad- 
 vance of his age. He is our earliest health reformer, the first who in 
 this country turned his mind and that of the public to hygiene as a 
 part of civil polity. In the Library of the Royal College of Physicians 
 jf Edinburgh, there were deposited by him, in 1781, a year before his 
 leath, ten large folios of MSS., entitled "Medical Annotations," form- 
 'ng the most remarkable record we have ever seen of the active intelli- 
 gence and industry of a physician in the course of an immense London 
 practice. Among other valuable matter, these volumes contain a 
 ''Treatise on Air, Climate, Diet, and Exercise," as subjects concern- 
 jig public as well as personal health, which indicates, in a very inter- 
 esting manner, the infantile condition of this science at that time, and 
 the author's singularly liberal, sagacious, and practical opinions. This 
 treatise is continued from time to time through many volumes, and 
 Aiust have been many years in writing. It is much to be regretted, 
 that by the terms of his gift of these MSS., the College is forbidden 
 ever to publish any of them. When a history of vital statistics and 
 hygiene is written, as we trust it may soon be, and we know of only 
 )ne man (Dr. Farr) who can fulfil this task, this treatise, dating nearly 
 12
 
 178 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 generous friend of Burke and Johnson ; D. Monro ; R 
 Somerville ; R. Jackson, whose system of arrangement 
 and discipline for the medical department of the army 
 is most valuable and judicious, and far in advance of its 
 date, 1805 ; Cheyne, Lempriere, and Fergusson. All 
 these reformers, differing as they often did in the specific 
 objects and expedients they each had in view, agreed in 
 the great, but then imperfectly known and recognized, 
 principle, that prevention is not only better, but easier 
 and cheaper, than cure that health is more managea- 
 ble than disease and that in military, as in civil life, 
 by discovering and attending to the laws by which God 
 regulates the course of nature, and the health of his ra- 
 tional creatures, immense evils may be prevented with 
 the utmost certainty, which evils, if once incurred, no 
 skill and art can countervail : in the one case, nature in 
 her courses fights for, in the other against, us ; serious 
 odds! 
 
 When and how is the world to be cured of its passion 
 
 100 years back, will deserve its due, as the herald of so much after 
 good. 
 
 Besides being, what only one other Scotchman, we believe, ever has 
 been (the Earl of Morton), President of the Royal Society, he was 
 Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh ; and 
 his observations on the diseases of the army, so famous in his duv, 
 with his discourse on some late improvements in preserving the health 
 of mariners, may still be read with advantage for their accurate de- 
 scription, their humane spirit, and plain good sense, and stand out in 
 marked contrast to the error, ignorance, and indifference then preva- 
 lent in all matters concerning the prevention of disease. His greatest 
 glory in his own day is his least now, his epitaph bearing on its front 
 'hat he was the man 
 
 " Quern celcissima Wallise Princessa 
 
 Regina serenissima, 
 Ipsius denique Regis Majestaa, 
 Medicuin sibi comprobavit."
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE 179 
 
 for the game of war ? As to the when, we may safely 
 say it is not yet come. In her voyage down the great 
 stream, our world has not yet slid into that spacious and 
 blessed Pacific, where 
 
 " Birds of calm sit brooding on the charmdd wave." 
 
 We have no more got this length than we have that to 
 which a friend of the author of The New Moral World 
 so eagerly looked forward, when she asked him 
 
 ' When shall we arrive at that state of pudity, 
 When we shall all walk about in our native nudity ? " 
 
 We fear we cannot yet dispense altogether either with 
 our clothes or our cartridges. We cannot afford to beat 
 all our swords into ploughshares. But we as firmly be- 
 lieve that we are on our way to this, and that the fight- 
 ing peace-men are doing much good. The idea of peace, 
 as a thing quite practicable, is gaining the ear of the 
 public, and from thence it will find its way into its 
 brain, and down to its heart, and thence out in act by 
 its will. We have no doubt that the time is coming 
 when, for a great trading nation like ours, supplying a 
 world with knowledge, calico, and tools, to keep an im- 
 mense army and navy will be as manifestly absurd and 
 unbusiness-like, as it would be for a bagman from Man- 
 chester, or a traveller from " The Row," to make his 
 rounds among his customers, armed cap-a-pie, soliciting 
 orders with his circular in one hand, and a Colt's re- 
 volver in the other. As to the how, chiefly in three 
 ways : First, By the commercial principle of profit and 
 loss, of a heavy balance against, coming to influence 
 the transactions of nations, as it has long done those of 
 private and social life free-trade, mutual connection 
 and intercourse, the proof, publicly brought out, that the
 
 180 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 interest of the body-politic is also that of every one of 
 its members, and the good of the whole that also spe- 
 cially of each part the adoption, not merely in theory, 
 but in practice, of a law of nations, by the great leading 
 powers, and the submitting disputes regarding territory, 
 commerce, and all the questions arising out of active 
 multifarious trading among the nations, to reason and 
 fixed rules, and settling them by the arbitration of intel- 
 ligent humane men, instead of by the discharge of a park 
 of artillery. Secondly, By the art of war being by sci- 
 entific discovery so advanced in the degree and the im- 
 mediateness of its destructiveness, so certain utterly to 
 destroy one of the sides, or it may be both, that it would 
 come to be as much abolished among well-bred, enlight- 
 ened nations as the duel would be among civilized men 
 were it certain that one or both of the combatants must 
 be extinguished on the spot. " Satisfaction " would not 
 be so often asked by nations or individuals, and dissatis- 
 faction not so often expressed, were this accomplished. 
 Thirdly, and chiefly, By nations not only becoming 
 shrewder and more truly aware of their own interests 
 and of what " pays " or such " dead shots " as to make 
 the issue of any war rapid and fatal, but most of all by 
 their growing, in the only true sense, better, more 
 under the habitual influence of genuine virtue, more in- 
 formed with the knowledge, and the fear, and the love 
 of God and of His laws. 
 
 Since finishing this paper, we have seen a copy of the 
 new statistical report on the sickness and mortality of 
 the British army, submitted on the 31st of March to the 
 Secretary at War, and presented the other day to Par- 
 liament. It does infinite credit to the energy, and accu- 
 racy, and judgment, of Sir A. M. Tulloch and Dr. Gra-
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 181 
 
 ham Balfour, by whom it has been prepared ; and is one 
 of the most valuable results yet obtained from that 
 method of research of which Dr. Marshall was, as we 
 have seen, the originator. It is not easy to make an 
 abstract of what is itself the concentrated essence of 
 an immense number of voluminous reports the two 
 valuable public servants above mentioned have always 
 heartily acknowledged their obligations to Dr. Marshall, 
 and they conclude their prefatory notice by saying, 
 "The death of Dr. Marshall, inspector-general of hos- 
 pitals, has deprived us of the valuable aid previously 
 afforded by that officer, in the medical details, for which 
 his long acquaintance with the statistics of his profession 
 so well qualified him." We shall make a few random 
 extracts, to show how well grounded Mr. Sidney Her- 
 bert's statement is, that the common soldier never was 
 better off than now. The report begins with enumerat- 
 ing the improvements in the condition of the soldier 
 since their last report in 1841. We have already men- 
 tioned the chief of these. During seven years upwards 
 of 16,000 have been expended in the purchase of books 
 for barrack libraries, and it is found that the numbers 
 who avail themselves of this new source of occupation 
 are every year on the increase, and thus much of the 
 time formerly wasted in the canteen, to the injury alike 
 of health and morals, is now devoted to reading. Great 
 improvements have been made in the construction and 
 ventilation of barracks and the means of ablution. The 
 good-conduct pay is found to work excellently. Prior 
 to 1837, the maximum of pay to a private could never 
 exceed Is. 2d. per day in the infantry, Is. 5d. in the 
 cavalry, exclusive of beer - money, even after twenty 
 years' service and the best character; but by the opera- 
 tion of the good-conduct warrants, a soldier by the same
 
 182 DR. MARSHALL AXD MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 service may now obtain Is. 4d. a day in infantry, and 
 Is. 7d. in cavalry. This has greatly added to the com 
 forts of old soldiers, some of whom, being married, could 
 only support their families by restricting their personal 
 expenditure to an extent hardly compatible with health 
 The evening meal of coffee or tea and bread, which had 
 been adopted by a few corps in 1837, is now general 
 and with, as might be expected, the best results. Suicide 
 in the cavalry is more than double that in the infantry, 
 being annually as 5.8 in every 10,000 is to 2.2. This 
 seems strange, as the cavalry is a more popular service 
 and better paid, and the men of a higher class, and, one 
 would think, the duties more interesting. The report 
 gives the conjecture, that this may arise from so many 
 of them being men of broken fortunes, who enlist when 
 rendered destitute by extravagance. In the Foot Guards 
 suicide is very rare, but the mortality from disease is 
 very great. The deaths among them annually per 1000 
 are at the rate of 20.4; in the infantry of the line, 17.9; 
 cavalry, 13.6 ; and in the civil population of large towns, 
 11.9. In the household cavalry the mortality is still 
 less : owing to their living better lives, and having larger 
 pay and more comfort, and less exposure and better ac- 
 commodation, their average per 1000 is only 11.1 ; but 
 this result is also materially owing to a weeding process, 
 by which those who exhibit traces of constitutional dis- 
 ease, or who are injuring their health and bringing dis- 
 credit on the corps by dissipation, are from time to time 
 discharged 216 of these tnauvais sujets having been 
 weeded out during the ten years to which the report re- 
 fers- 
 
 " Such a weeding," the reporters very truly observe, 
 " cannot fail to have a very beneficial effect both on 
 f heir moral and physicial condition, and, if practicable,
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 183 
 
 would be of vast benefit also in other branches of the 
 service." The difficulty originates in this, that in the 
 line the rate of pay is less than the average wages of 
 the laboring classes, while in the Horse Guards it is 
 greater. 
 
 Under the head of fevers, we find this extraordinary 
 proof of the fatality of typhus in the troops of the 
 United Kingdom : in the cavalry, of those attacked, 1 
 in 3f dies; in the Foot Guards, 1 in 3 ; in the infan- 
 try, 1 in 4 which is quite as high as the mortality of 
 the remittent or yellow fever in the West Indies. 
 
 Nothing can be more satisfactory than the report on 
 corporal punishments. 
 
 " This description of punishment has now become so 
 rare, that in the Foot Guards only one instance has oc- 
 curred in every 1000 men annually; in the Regiments 
 of the Line the proportion was five times as great. The 
 large number of recruits in the latter, particularly after 
 their return from foreign service, may be assigned as 
 one cause for this difference, as also their being dispersed 
 over the country, and in many instances in quarters 
 where no facilities exist for imprisonment. The estab- 
 lishment of military prisons, to which offenders may be 
 sent from all parts of the country, has of late provided 
 a remedy for this, which will be likely to render the 
 contrast less striking in future years. The admissions 
 in the Dragoon Guards and Dragoons, are 3 per 1000 
 annually, being a mean between the Foot Guards and 
 Infantry of the Line. 
 
 " We have no means of comparing the proportion dur- 
 ing the period included in this report with that of the 
 previous seven years, except for the Cavalry, in which 
 will be found a decrease in the admissions from 8 to 3 
 oer 1000 of the mean strength annually; so rare, in-
 
 184 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 deed, is this description of punishment in the present 
 day, that it may almost be considered extinct, except as 
 regards a few iucorrigibles, who are unfortunately to 
 be found in the ranks of every regiment, and who are 
 probably equally numerous in civil life. The following 
 Table exhibits the gradual decrease in this description 
 of punishment among the several classes of troops i 
 this country for each year since 1837 : 
 
 Number punished. 
 
 l.S"7 
 
 ua 
 
 1811 
 
 ISKI 
 
 1841 
 
 IS 12 
 
 isr: 
 
 1844 ; 1845 
 
 isWjSi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dragoon Guards and \ 
 Dragoons. . . . . / 
 
 u 
 
 14 
 
 U 
 
 17 
 
 24 
 
 U 
 
 7 
 
 28 
 
 u:; 
 
 11 
 
 138 
 
 Foot Guards 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 (i 
 
 1 
 
 40 
 
 Infantry of the Line, . 
 
 88 
 
 U 
 
 Be 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 59 
 
 76 
 
 1D7 
 
 un 
 
 a 
 
 768 
 
 Ratio per 1000 punisherl. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dragoon Guards and \ 
 Dragoons, . . . . / 
 
 2.5 
 
 2.7 
 
 5.5 
 
 .'1.2 
 
 4.5 
 
 3.2 
 
 1.3 
 
 4.. 1 ) 
 
 8.8 
 
 8.0 
 
 3.4 
 
 Foot Guards, .... 
 
 .0 
 
 1.0 
 
 8.9 
 
 .9 
 
 .6 
 
 U 
 
 1.0 
 
 1.0 
 
 1.2 
 
 .2 
 
 1.0 
 
 Infantry of the Line, . 
 
 5.7 
 
 6.9 
 
 .V.I 
 
 4.U 
 
 4.6 
 
 4.:j 
 
 3.8 
 
 4.:; 
 
 0.!) 
 
 1.4 
 
 4.8 
 
 " This reduction in corporal punishment extends not 
 merely to the troops at home, but to the whole Army, 
 as will be seen by the following Summary, prepared 
 from the returns forwarded annually to the Adjutant- 
 General's Department from every Regiment in the Ser- 
 vice : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Effective 
 Strength, in 
 each Year. 
 
 Sentenced to 
 Corporal 
 Punishment. 
 
 Ratio per 1000 
 Sentenced to 
 Corporal 
 Punishment. 
 
 1838 
 
 96,907 
 
 988 
 
 10.2 
 
 1839 
 1840 
 
 103,152 
 112,653 
 
 935 
 931 
 
 9.1 
 8.3 
 
 1841 
 1842 
 1843 
 
 116,369 
 120,313 
 123,452 
 
 866 
 881 
 700 
 
 7.4 
 7.3 
 5.6 
 
 1844 
 
 125,105 
 
 695 
 
 5.5 
 
 1845 
 
 125,252 
 
 696 
 
 5.5 
 
 1846 
 
 126,501 
 
 519 
 
 4.1
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 185 
 
 "Thus, instead of 10 men in every 1000 throughout 
 the army having undergone corporal punishment, as 
 was the case in 1838, the proportion in 1846 was only 
 4 per 1000. And not only has there been this great 
 reduction in the frequency, but a corresponding altera- 
 tion has taken place in the severity also. Even so late 
 as 1832, the number of lashes which might be awarded 
 by a General Court-Martial was unlimited, and in 1825, 
 it is on record that one man was sentenced to 1900, of 
 which he received 1200. From 1832 to 1837, the maxi- 
 mum number of lashes inflicted by the sentence of such 
 Courts became gradually reduced as follows : 
 
 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 i837 
 
 800 500 600 500 400 200 
 
 "After 1836 no higher number could be awarded, 
 even by a General Court-Martial, than 200 lashes ; 
 while a District Court-Martial was limited to 150, and a 
 Regimental one to 100. Since 1847 the maximum of 
 this description of punishment has been limited to 50 
 lashes ; but the effect of that restriction on the admis- 
 sions into hospital will fall to be considered rather in a 
 subsequent report than on the present occasion. 
 
 " When this amelioration commenced, grave appre- 
 hensions were entertained that it would give rise to such 
 relaxation of discipline as to cause a considerable in- 
 crease in the description of offences for which corporal 
 punishment had usually been awarded, and that trans- 
 portation and capital punishment would become more 
 frequent; but never were apprehensions less warranted 
 by the result, as will be seen by the following abstract 
 of the Table prepared from the Adjutant-General's Re- 
 turn, No. xn. of Appendix :
 
 186 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 "In 1838, out of 96,907 men, there were 9944 
 Courts-Martial; 441 general,, and 4813 district; sen- 
 tenced to death, 14; transportation, 221; while in 
 1846, out of 126,591, there were 9212 Courts-Martial, 
 whereof there were 200 general and 3959 district ; sen- 
 tenced to death, 1 ; transportation 114." 
 
 All this has occurred without any relaxation of dis- 
 cipline, the army never having been in a more efficient 
 state than at present. 
 
 This paper was written in 1853. Since that time 
 much has been done in carrying out genuine army re- 
 form and hygiene. The Crisaean "War, with its glory 
 and its havoc, laid bare and made intolerable many 
 abuses and wants. Above all, it fixed the eyes of their 
 country on the miseries, the wrongs, and the virtues of 
 the common soldier. Whatever may be said by history 
 of our skill in the art of war, as displayed during that 
 campaign, one thing was tried and not found wanting in 
 that terrible time the stoutness, the endurance, the 
 " bottom," of our race, what old Dr. Cains calls " the 
 olde manly hardnes, stoute courage, and peinfulnes of 
 Englande." l 
 
 We need not say how much more the nation loved 
 and cared for these noble fellows, when it saw that to 
 these, the cardinal virtues of a soldier, were added, in so 
 many instances, the purest devotion, patience, intelli- 
 gence, and a true moral greatness. It is the best test, 
 as it is the main glory and chief end of a true civiliza- 
 tion, its caring for the great body of the people. This 
 it is which distinguishes our time from all others, and 
 the common soldier is now sharing in this movement, 
 which is twice blessed. 
 
 1 From his "Booke or Cotinseil against the disease called th 
 Sweate, made by Jhou Caius, Doctour hi Phisicke, 1552."
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 187 
 
 But all great and true generals, from King David, 
 Hannibal, Caesar, Cromwell, the great Frederic, etc., 
 down to our own Sir Colin, have had their men's com- 
 forts, interests, and lives at heart. The late Lord Dun- 
 fermliue magni parentis filius haud degener when 
 speaking, with deep feeling and anger, to the writer 
 about the sufferings of the men, and the frightful blun- 
 ders in the Crimea, told the following story of his father, 
 the great and good Sir Ralph Abercromby. After his 
 glorious victory, the dying general was being carried on 
 a litter to the boat of the " Foudroyant," in which he 
 died. He was in great pain from his wound, and could 
 get no place to rest. Sir John Macdonald (afterwards 
 adjutant-general) put something under his head. Sir 
 Ralph smiled and said, " That is a comfort ; that is the 
 very thing. What is it, John ? " " It is only a soldier's 
 blanket, Sir Ralph." " Only a soldier's blanket, Sir ! " 
 said the old man, fixing his eye severely on him. " Whose 
 blanket is it ? " " One of the men's." " I wish to know 
 the name of the man whose this blanket is ; " and 
 everything paused till he was satisfied. " It is Duncan 
 Roy's of the 42d, Sir Ralph." " Then see that Duncan 
 Roy gets his blanket this very night ; " and, wearied and 
 content, the soldier's friend was moved to his death- 
 bed. " Yes, Doctor," said Lord Dunfermline, in his 
 strong, earnest way, " the whole question is in that 
 blanket in Duncan getting his blanket that very 
 night." 
 
 I cannot conclude these remarks more fitly, than by 
 quoting the following evidence, given before the Com- 
 missioners on the sanitary state of the Army, by Dr. 
 Balfour, the worthy pupil of Dr. Marshall, and now 
 medical officer of the Royal Asylum, Chelsea ; any man
 
 188 DR. MARSHALL AXD MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 may see from it what good sense, good feeling, and san- 
 itary science, may accomplish and prevent. 
 
 " On the retirement of Dr. Marshall, I was associated 
 with Colonel Tulloch in the preparation of the subse- 
 quent reports. In the course of that duty I was much 
 struck with the great amount of mortality generally, and 
 the large proportion of it which appeared to be caused 
 by preventible disease. I subsequently had the oppor- 
 tunity of verifying my opinion on this point, by watch- 
 ing the results which followed the adoption of various 
 sanitary measures which we recommended in our report, 
 and which were carried out to a greater or less extent. 
 The results obtained from these changes fully confirmed 
 my previous opinions, and led me to continue to make 
 the subject my special study. 
 
 " Is the present diet of the soldier well calculated to 
 produce this effect? I think not; it would scarcely be 
 possible to devise anything worse calculated for the pur- 
 pose, than the diet of the soldier was when I first joined 
 the service. He had then two meals a day, breakfast 
 and dinner ; and the period between dinner and break- 
 fast the following day was nineteen hours. His dinner 
 consisted of perpetual boiled beef and broth. Subse- 
 quently the introduction of the evening meal, which had 
 been pressed upon the attention of the military authori- 
 ties by the medical officers for many years, effected a 
 very great improvement. In other respects, his diet, as 
 laid down by regulation, continues the same as at that 
 period. It is monotonous to a degree. I have fre- 
 quently seen, in a barrack-room, soldiers, and especially 
 .he older ones, leave the broth untouched. 
 
 "Would it be possible to improve the soldiers' diet 
 Uy infusing into it greater variety ? I know practically
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 189 
 
 it is quite possible to do so. When I was appointed to 
 the Royal Military Asylum, I found the system of feed- 
 ing the boys pretty much the same as that in the army, 
 but not quite so monotonous, as they had baked mutton 
 on Sundays, suet pudding three days in the week, and 
 boiled beef on the other three days ; the meat was al- 
 ways boiled, but they did not get broth, the liquor being 
 thrown away. They had abundance of food, their din- 
 ner consisting, on meat days, of eleven ounces of meat, 
 without bone, which is more than is given to the soldier ; 
 but they did not eat it with relish, and quantities of food 
 were taken away to the hog-tub. The boys were pale 
 and feeble, and evidently in a very low state of health. 
 Mr. Benjamin Phillips, a very high authority on scrof- 
 ulous disease, told me, that when he examined the 
 Bchool, while engaged in preparing his work on scrofula 
 for publication, he found the boys lower in point of 
 physique than almost any school he had examined, even 
 including those of the workhouses. After a careful ex- 
 amination of the dietaries of almost all the principal 
 schools established for children in England and Scotland, 
 I prepared a scale of diet, which was sanctioned by the 
 Commissioners in December 1848, and, with a few slight 
 modifications, is now in use at the asylum. The chief 
 points I kept in view were, to give a sufficient amount 
 of food in varied and palatable forms, and without long 
 intervals of fasting. The following are the old and the 
 present scales of dietaries :
 
 190 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 "ROYAL MILITARY ASYLUM, CHELSEA. 
 "DIET TABLE OF THE BOYS OF THE ASYLUM IN 1848. 
 
 Davs of 
 Week. 
 
 Breakfast at 
 
 8 A. H. 
 
 Dinner at 
 
 1 P. M. 
 
 Supper at 
 
 6 P. M. 
 
 Sundav . ") 
 Tuesday . 
 and 
 Thursday J 
 
 Cocoa ft oz. 
 Susjar 5 oz. 
 Milk jgill 
 Bread 5 oz. 
 
 Beef . . 11 oz. 
 Potatoes . 8 " 
 Bread . . 5 " 
 Table-beer i pt. 
 
 Bread 
 5 oz. 
 Milk 
 Jipt- 
 
 Monday . 1 
 Wednesday 1 
 and 
 Friday . J 
 
 Ditto . . 
 
 Suet . . 2 oz. 
 Flour . . 8 " 
 Potatoes . 8 " 
 Bread . . 5 " 
 Table-beer J pt. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Saturday . 
 
 I 
 
 Rt. Mutton 11 oz. 
 Potatoes . 8 " 
 Bread . . 5 " 
 Beer . . \ pt. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Children under eight years of age have 8 oz. of meat instead of 11 oz., and 
 4 oz. of bread instead of 5 oz 
 
 " Did the improvement in the dietary greatly increase 
 its cost? On the contrary, it saved nearly 300 a year 
 in the feeding of the establishment. By introducing a 
 greater variety, the boys took the whole of their food 
 with relish, and I was able to get them into good condi- 
 tion by distributing the same amount of meat over seven 
 days that they previously had in four. 
 
 "Were the results satisfactory? The results were 
 far beyond my expectation. Comparing the sickness and 
 mortality in the establishment for the ten years previous 
 to my appointment, and for the eight years and a half 
 that have passed since these alterations were introduced, 
 I find that the sickness has been reduced by about one- 
 third, and the annual mortality has fallen from 9.7 per 
 1000 of the strength on the average of ten years to 4.9
 
 DR. MARSHALL AND MILITARY HYGIENE. 191 
 "DIET TABLE OF THE BOYS OF THE ASYLUM IN JULY 1857. 
 
 Days of 
 Week. 
 
 Breakfast al 
 
 8 A.M. 
 
 
 Dinner at 1 P. M. 
 
 At half- 
 pastSp.M. 
 
 Supper 
 at 
 
 8 P.M. 
 
 Sunday 
 
 Cocoa i oz. 
 Sugar | " 
 Mi'lk |gill 
 Bread 5 oz. 
 
 
 Irish ( bC f to - 8 J^ 
 
 stew (onions i " 
 Pud- | flour . 2 " 
 ding I suet . i " 
 Bread . . . 2| " 
 
 ! Bread 
 
 f* 
 
 Bread 
 5 oz. 
 Milk 
 ipt. 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 Boiled Beef 6 oz. 
 
 ] 
 
 
 Monday 
 
 
 
 Broth . . . . \ pt. 
 Greens ... 6 oz. 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 Bread . . . 2J " 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 Roast mutton . 6 oz. 
 Yorkshire I flour 4 " 
 
 | 
 
 
 Tuesday 
 
 ... 
 
 ; 
 
 pudding ( suet i " 
 Bread . . . 2 " 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 
 ]. j. ( beef . 6 oz. 
 
 
 
 Wednesday 
 
 . 
 
 
 , ' < potatoes 6 " 
 ( onions i " 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 Bread . . . 2| " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Roast mutton . 8 oz. 
 
 
 
 Thursday 
 
 ... 
 
 
 Rice ( rice , 2 oz. 
 pud- < milk . i pt. 
 ding ( sugar . I oz. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Stewed beef . 6 oz. 
 
 ] 
 
 
 Frid&v 
 
 
 
 Rice .... 3 " 
 
 " 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 1 reacle . . . i " 
 Bread . . . 2| " 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 Boiled beef . . 6 oz. 
 
 
 
 Saturday 
 
 
 
 Potatoes . . 6 " 
 
 tt 
 
 1 
 (I 
 
 
 
 
 Bread . . . . 2| oz. 
 
 
 
 Children under eight to have 4 02. of meat instead of 6 oz. 
 
 per 1000 on the average of eight years and a half. This 
 is not entirely attributable to the change of diet, though 
 that was a most important means. At the same time 
 there were other improvements introduced, such as in
 
 192 DR. MARSHALL AXD MILITARY HYGIENE. 
 
 creased space in the dormitories, improved ventilation, 
 and abundant means of cold bathing all of which are 
 most important elements in preserving health. 
 
 " I may mention another point with regard to health, 
 that on the average of the ten years the proportion of boys 
 reported unfit for military service by the surgeon was 
 12.4 per 1000 annually, principally on account of scrof- 
 ulous cicatrices on the neck that would have prevented 
 them wearing the military stock, and during the eight 
 years and a half it has been reduced to 4.55 per 1000. 
 It is now very little more than one-third of what it used 
 to be." 
 
 NOTE -P. 169. 
 
 EXTRACT from a work entitled " Plans for the Defence of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, by Lieutenant-Colonel Dirom, D. Q. M. G. in 
 North Britain, 1797." 
 
 " In the island of Jamaica, iu the West Indies, where the troops are 
 generally unhealthy in the garrisons along the coast, and were particu- 
 larly so in the years 1750 and 1751, a calamity doubly alarming, as 
 the island was threatened with an attack by the combined forces of 
 France and Spain, the late eminent Sir Alexander Campbell deter- 
 mined to try a new experiment for the accommodation of the troops. 
 He chose an elevated situation on the mountains behind Kingston, 
 called Stony Hill, where there was good water, a free circulation of 
 air, and a temperature of climate in general ten degrees cooler than in 
 the low country along the coast. The wood, which was cleared from 
 the hill, and the soil, which was clay, were the chief materials used in 
 constructing the barracks. The 19th and 38th Regiments were sent 
 there on their arrival from America, and ground was allotted them for 
 gardens. They enjoyed a degree of robust health very unusual in that 
 climate. When not upon duty or under arms, they were employed in 
 their gardens, or in amusements, the whole day long. Their wives and 
 children enjoyed eqnal happiness ; and in the course of two years, this 
 military colony, for so it appeared, had not at any time a greater, if 
 even so great, a proportion of men sick as they would have had in 
 Europe ; and there is reason to believe that during that time they had 
 nearly as many children born in the regiment as they had lost men by 
 death." 
 
 The author was at this time adjutant-general in Jamaica.
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Ilepl yeveffiv rex^n */>* ^b &v tirier-fiM- AKIST. AN. POST 
 ii. xix. 4. 
 
 wptlTiKW p.\v (hriaThws} re'Aoy dX^eta- TrpaKTJKqs 5' ?7por. 
 AEIST. 
 
 Per speculativam scimus ut sciamus ; per practicam scimus vt 
 operemur. AVBRKOES. 
 
 13
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 E give these thoughts with this caution to our 
 readers as well as to ourselves, that they do 
 not run them out of breath. There is always 
 a temptation to push such contrasts too far. In fact, 
 they are more provocatives to personal independent 
 thought than anything else ; if they are more, they are 
 mischievous. Moreover, it must always be remembered 
 that Art, even of the lowest and most inarticulate kind, 
 is always tending towards a scientific form to the dis- 
 covery and assertion of itself ; and Science, if it deserves 
 the name, is never absolutely barren, but goes down 
 into some form of human action becomes an art. 
 The two run into each other. Art is often the strong 
 blind man, on whose shoulders the lame and seeing man 
 is crossing the river, as in Bewick's tail-piece. No arts- 
 man is literally without conscious and systematized, se- 
 lected knowledge, which is science ; and no scientific 
 man can remain absolutely inoperative ; but of two men 
 one may be predominantly the one, and another the 
 other. The word Science, in what follows, is used 
 mainly in the sense of information, as equivalent to a 
 body of ascertained truths as having to do with doc- 
 trines. The word Art is used in the sense of practical 
 knowledge and applied power. The reader will find 
 some excellent remarks on this subject, in Thomson's 
 Laws of Thought, Introduction, and in Mill's Logic, 
 book vi. chap. xi.
 
 196 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 IN MEDICINE, 
 
 ART SCIEXCB 
 
 Looks to symptoms and occa- Looks to essence and cause. 
 
 sions. 
 
 Is therapeutic and prognostic. 
 
 Is diagnostic. 
 
 Has a method. Has a system. 
 
 Is ante mortem. Is post mortem. 
 
 Looks to function more than Looks tfce versa. 
 structure. 
 
 Runs for the stomach-pump. 
 
 Submits to be ignorant of much. 
 Acts. 
 
 Studies the phenomena of poison- 
 ing. 
 
 Submits to be ignorant of nothing. 
 Speaks. 
 
 Science and Art are the offspring of light and truth, 
 of intelligence and will ; they are the parents of philos- 
 ophy that its father, this its mother. Art conies up 
 out of darkness, like a flower, is there before you are 
 aware, its roots unseen, not to be meddled with safely ; 
 it has grown from a seed, itself once alive, perishing in 
 giving birth to its child. It draws its nourishment from 
 all its neighborhood, taking this, and rejecting that, by 
 virtue of its elective instinct knowing what is good for 
 it ; it lives upon the debris of former life. It is often a 
 thing without a name, a substance without an articulate 
 form, a power felt rather than seen. It has always life, 
 energy automatic energy. It goes upon its own feet, 
 and can go anywhere across a country, and hunts more 
 by scent than sight. Science goes upon wheels, and 
 must have a road or a rail. Art's leaves and stem may 
 be harsh and uncomely ; its flower when its does 
 flower is beautiful, few things in this world more so. 
 Science comes from the market ; it is sold, can be meas- 
 ured and weighed, can be handled and gauged. It is 
 full of light ; but is lucid rather than luminous ; it is, at
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 197 
 
 its best, food, not blood, much less muscle the fuel, 
 not the fire. It is taken out of a nursery, and is planted 
 as men plant larches. It is not propagated by seed ; 
 rather by bud, often by cutting. Many stick in leafy 
 branches of such trees, and wonder, like children, why 
 they don't grow; they look well at first, "but having 
 no root they wither away." You may cover a hill-side 
 with such plantations. You must court the sowing of 
 #he winds, the dropping of the acorns, the dung of birds, 
 the rain, the infinite chances and helps of time, before 
 you can get a glen feathered with oak-coppice or birks. , 
 You will soon sell your larches ; they are always in de- 
 mand ; they make good sleepers. You will not get a 
 walking-stick out of them, a crutch for your old age, or 
 a rib for a 74. You must take them from a wind-sown, 
 wind-welded and heartened tree. Science is like cast- 
 iron ; soon made, brittle, and without elasticity, formal, 
 useless when broken. Art is like malleable iron ; tough, 
 can cut, can be used up ; is harder and has a spring. 
 Your well-informed, merely scientific, men are all alike. 
 Set one agoing at any point, he brings up as he revolves 
 the same figures, the same thoughts, or rather ghosts of 
 thoughts, as any ten thousand others. Look at him on 
 one side, and, like a larch, you see his whole ; every 
 side is alike. Look at the poorest hazel, holding itself 
 by its grappling talons on some gray rock, and you never 
 saw one like it ; you will never see one like it again ; it 
 has more sides than one ; it has had a discipline, and 
 has a will of its own ; it is self-taught, self-sufficient. 
 
 Wisdom is the vital union of Art and Science ; an 
 individual result of the two : it is more excellent than 
 either; it is the body animated by the soul; the will, 
 knowing what to do, and how to do it; the members
 
 198 
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 capable of fulfilling its bidding ; the heart nourishing 
 and warming the whole; the brain stimulating and 
 quickening the entire organism. 
 
 SCIENCE AND ART, A CONTRASTED PARALLEL. 
 
 ART SCIENCE 
 
 Knows little of its birth. 
 
 Knows more of its progeny. 
 
 Invents. 
 
 Uses the imperative. 
 
 Is founded on experience. 
 
 Teaches us to do. 
 
 Is motive and dynamical. 
 
 Is eductive and conductive. 
 
 Involves knowledge. 
 
 Buys it, making of it what it 
 likes, and needs, and no more. 
 
 Has rules. 
 
 Is synthetical more than analyt- 
 ical. 
 
 Is regulative and administrative, 
 and shows the how, cares less 
 about the why. 
 
 Eats ; makes muscles, and brains, 
 and bones, and teeth, and fin- 
 gers of it, without very well 
 knowing how. 
 
 Is strong in organic life, and 
 dwells in the non-ego. 
 
 Is unconscious. 
 
 Is a hand that handles tools ; is 
 executive. 
 
 Does something, and could do it 
 again. 
 
 Is gold. 
 
 Apprehends. 
 
 Ts endogenous, and grows from 
 within. 
 
 Is often liferented ; dies with its 
 possessor. 
 
 Knows its birth ; registers it, and 
 
 its after history. 
 Has often no progeny at all. 
 Discovers. 
 Uses the indicative. 
 Is antecedent to experience. 
 Teaches us to know. 
 Is statical and has no feet. 
 Is inductive and deductive. 
 Evolves it. 
 Makes it up, and sells it. 
 
 Has laws. 
 Is the reverse. 
 
 Is legislative and judicial ; says 
 what; says little as to how, but 
 much as to why. 
 
 Makes food, cooks it, serves it up. 
 
 Is strong in animal life, and dwells 
 
 in the ego. 
 Is conscious. 
 Is a sword, or a knife, or a pen, 
 
 or, in a word, an instrument. 
 Says something, and can say it 
 
 again. 
 Is coin. 
 Comprehends. 
 Is exogenous, and grows from 
 
 without. 
 Is transmissible.
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 199 
 
 Forges the mind. 
 
 Makes knowledge a means. 
 
 Is a master, and keeps apprentices. 
 
 Holds by the will. 
 
 Is effect. 
 
 Is great in TO oi-i. 1 
 
 Is science embodied material- 
 ized. 
 
 Is the outflowing of mind into 
 nature. 
 
 Is man acting on nature. 
 
 Gives form, excellency, and 
 beauty, to the rude material on 
 which it operates. 
 
 Uses one eye. 
 
 SCIENCE 
 
 Furnishes it. 
 
 Makes it an end. 
 
 Is a teacher, and has scholars. 
 
 Holds by the understanding. 
 
 Is cause. 
 
 Is great in TO SIOTI. 
 
 Is art spiritualized. 
 
 Is the inflowing of nature into 
 mind. 
 
 Is nature speaking to man. 
 
 Gives form, excellency, and 
 beauty, to the otherwise unin- 
 formed intelligence in which it 
 resides. 
 
 Uses the other. 
 
 Uses both, and is stereoscopic, discerning solidity as well as surface, 
 and seeing on both sides ; its vision being the unum quid of two 
 images. 
 
 My friend, Dr. Adams of Banchory, tells me that 
 Bacon somewhere calls Science and Art a pair of Cy- 
 clops, and that Kant calls them twin Polyphemes. 
 
 It may be thought that I have shown myself, in this 
 parallel and contrast, too much of a partisan for Art as 
 against Science, and the same may be not unfairly said 
 of much of the rest of this volume : it was in a measure 
 on purpose ; the general tendency being counteractive of 
 the purely scientific and positive, or merely informative 
 current of our day. We need to remind ourselves con- 
 stantly, that this kind of knowledge puffeth up, and that 
 it is something quite else which buildeth up. 2 It has 
 
 1 'Apx>) yap TO OTI ' KOI ei TOUTO (patvoiTO apKoimo?, ovSev TrpotrSeiJcrei TOL 
 
 Sm Principium est enim scire rem ita esse ; quod si satis sit perspi 
 cuum, cur ita sit non magnopere desiderabitur. ARIST. ETH. A. iv. 
 
 2 Advancement of Learning, pp. 8-11. Pickering's Ed.
 
 200 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 been finely said that Nature is the Art of God, and w^e 
 may as truly say that all art in the widest sense, as 
 practical and productive is his science. He knows all 
 that goes to the making of everything, for He is him- 
 self, in the strictest sense, the only maker. He knows 
 what made Shakespeare and Newton, Julius Caesar and 
 Plato, what we know them to have been, and they are 
 his by the same right as the sea is, and the strength of 
 the hills, for He made them and his hands formed them, 
 as well as the dry land. This making the circle for ever 
 meet, this bringing Omega eternally round to Alpha, is, 
 I think, more and more revealing itself as a great cen- 
 tral, personal, regulative truth, and is being carried 
 down more than ever into the recesses of physical re- 
 search, where Nature is fast telling her long-kept secrets, 
 all her tribes speaking each in their own tongue the 
 wonderful works of God the sea is saying, It is not 
 in me, everything is giving up any title to anything 
 like substance, beyond being the result of the one Su- 
 preme "Will. The more chemistry, and electrology, and 
 life are searched into by the keenest and most remorse- 
 less experiment, the more do we find ourselves admit- 
 ting that motive power and force, as manifested to us, 
 is derived, is in its essence immaterial, is direct from Him 
 in whom we live and move, and to whom, in a sense 
 quite peculiar, belongeth power. 
 
 Gravitation, we all allow, is not provable to be in- 
 herent in matter; it is db extra; and as it were, the 
 attraction of his offspring to the infinite Parent, their 
 being drawn to Him, the spirit, the vis motiva, return- 
 ng to Him who gave it. 
 
 The Dynamical Theory, as it is called, tends this way. 
 Search into matter, and try to take it at the quick ere it
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 201 
 
 is aware, the nearer you are to it the less material it 
 seems ; it as it were recedes and shrinks like moon- 
 light vanishing as soon as scanned, and seems, as far as 
 we can yet say, and as old Boscovich said, little else 
 than a congeries of forces. Matter under the lens is 
 first seen as made up of atoms swimming in nothing; 
 then further on, these atoms become themselves trans- 
 lucent, and, as if scared, break up and disappear. So 
 that, for anything we are getting to know, this may be 
 the only essence of matter, that it is capable of being 
 acted upon so as to re-act ; and that here, as well as in 
 all that is more usually called spiritual and dynamical, 
 God is all in all, the beginning, as he certainly is the 
 ending ; and that matter is what it is, simply by his 
 willing it, and that his willing it to be, constitutes its 
 essence. 1 
 
 1 The doctrine of the unity of Nature, however difficult of physical 
 proof by experiment, and we might a priori expect it to be very 
 difficult, for in such a case we must go up against the stream, instead 
 of, as in analytics, going with it, it is a secret of Nature, and she re- 
 fuses stoutly to give it up, you can readily split the sunbeam into its 
 spectrum, its chemical and electric rays ; you cannot so readily gather 
 them up into- one, but metaphysically, it has always seemed to me 
 more than probable. If God is one, as we believe, and if he made all 
 worlds out of nothing by his word, then surely, the nearest thing to 
 the essence of all Nature, when she came from God, the materies mate- 
 rice, must partake of his unity, or in words used elsewhere (Preface to 
 Dr. Samuel Brown's Lectures and Essays), and somewhat altered 
 " If we believe that matter and all created existence is the immediate 
 result of the will of the Supreme, who of old inhabited his own eter 
 nity and dwelt alone ; that he said ' Fiat ! ' et Jit, that Nature is 
 for ever uttering to the great I AM, this one speech 'Tnou ART !' 
 is not the conclusion irresistible, that matter thus willed, resulting, as 
 it does, in an external world, and, indeed, in all things visible and in- 
 visible, must partake of the absolute unity of its Author, and must, in 
 any essence which it may be said to possess, be itself necessarily ONE 
 being by the same infinite Will made what we find it to be, multiform 
 and yet one :
 
 202 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 The more the microscope searches out the molecular 
 structure of matter, the thinner does its object become, 
 till we feel as if the veil were not so much being with- 
 drawn, as being worn away by the keen scrutiny, or rent 
 in twain, until at last we come to the true Shechinah, 
 and may discern through it, if our shoes are off, the 
 words " I AM," burning, but not consumed. 
 
 There is a Science of Art, and there is an Art of Sci- 
 ence the Art of Discovery, as by a wonderful instinct, 
 enlarging human knowledge. Some of the highest ex- 
 ercises of the human spirit have been here. All primary 
 discoverers are artists in the sciences they work in. 
 Newton's guess that the diamond was inflammable, and 
 many instances which must occur to the reader, are of 
 the true artsman kind ; he did it by a sort of venatic 
 sense knowing somewhat, and venturing more com- 
 ing events forecasting their shadows, but shadows which 
 the wise alone can interpret. A man who has been up 
 all night, while the world was asleep, and has watched 
 the day-spring, the light shooting and circulating in the 
 upper heavens, knows that the sun is coming, that " the 
 bright procession " is " on its way." It shines afar to 
 him, because he has watched it from his Fesole, and 
 presaged the dawn. The world in general has not been 
 an early riser ; it is more given to sit late ; it frequents 
 the valleys more than the mountain-tops. Thus it is, 
 that many discoveries, which to us below seem mysteri- 
 ous, as if they had a touch of witchcraft about them, are 
 
 1 One God, one law, one element.' " 
 
 In reference to this doctrine, Faraday, and indeed all advanced 
 chemists and physicists, indicate that they are, as children used to say 
 in their play, "getting warm," and nearing this great consummation, 
 which will be the true philosophy of material science, its education 
 from the multiple and complex, into the simple and one-fold.
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 203 
 
 the plain, certain discoveries of sagacious reason higher 
 up. The scientific prophet has done all this, as Ruskin 
 says, by " the instinctive grasp which the healthy imag- 
 ination 1 has of possible truth ; " but he got the grasp 
 and the instinct, and his means, from long, rigorous prac- 
 tice with actual truth. 
 
 We ought to reverence these men, as we stand afar 
 off on the plain, and see them going up "the mount," 
 and drawing nearer into the darkness where God dwells : 
 they will return with a message for us. 
 
 This foretelling, or power of scientific anticipation, is, 
 as we have said, the highest act of scientific man, and is 
 an inter penetration of 'E7ri<m//A77 and TC'^VT;. 
 
 Such a view as I have given is in harmony with rev- 
 elation, and unites with it in proclaiming the moral 
 personality, not less than the omnipotence, of God, who 
 
 1 The part which imagination plays in all primary discoveries 
 might be here enlarged on, were there room. Here, as everywhere 
 else, the difficulty is to keep the mean, and avoid too much wing, or 
 too little. A geologist or chemist without imagination is a bird with- 
 out wings ; if he wants the body of common sense, and the brain of 
 reason, he is like a butterfly ; he may be a "child of the sun," and 
 his emblazoned wings be "rich as an evening sky," but he is the sport 
 of every wind of doctrine, he flutters to and fro purposeless, is brilliant 
 and evanescent as the flowers he lives on. Kather should he be like 
 the seraphim, "who had six wings; with twain he covered his feet, 
 with twain he covered his face, and with twain he did fly ; " rever- 
 ence, modesty, and caution a habit of walking humbly are as 
 much part of a great philosopher as insight and daring. But I believe 
 there has been no true discoverer, from Galileo and Kepler, to Davy, 
 Owen, and our own Goodsir the Nimrods of "possible truth" 
 without wings ; they have ever had as their stoutest, stanchest hound, 
 a powerful and healthy imagination to find and "point" the game. 
 None of these men remained within the positive known : they must 
 hypothesize, as Warburton calls it ; they must, by a necessity of their 
 nature, reach from the known out into the unknown. The great thing 
 is to start from a truth ; to have a punctum stuns from which to move
 
 204 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 thus, in a sense quite literal, " guides all the creatures 
 with his eye, and refreshes them with his influence, mak- 
 ing them feel the force of his Almightiness." (Jeremy 
 Taylor.) 1 Every one must remember the sublimely 
 simple shutting up of the Principia, as by " a sevenfold 
 chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." The 
 humility of its author has a grandeur in it greater than 
 any pride ; it is as if that lonely, intrepid thinker, who 
 had climbed the heavens by that ladder he speaks of in 
 such modest and homely phrase (patient observation, in 
 which, if in anything, he thought he excelled other men, 
 the never missing a step), after soaring "above the 
 wheeling poles," had come suddenly to " heaven's door," 
 and at it looked in, and had prostrated himself before 
 " the thunderous throne." 2 
 
 There is here the same strength, simplicity, and stern 
 beauty and surprise, as of lightning and thunder, the 
 same peremptory assertion and reiteration of the subject, 
 like " harpers harping upon their harps," and the same 
 main burden and refrain, as in the amazing chorus which 
 closes Handel's " Messiah." We give it for its own 
 grandeur, and for its inculcation of the personality of 
 God, so much needed now, and without which human 
 responsibility, and moral obligation, and all we call duty, 
 must be little else than a dream. 
 
 " Hie omnia regit non ut anima mundi, sed ut univer- 
 Borum dominus. Et propter dominium suuin, domiaus 
 deus TlavroKpuLTtap dici solet. Nam deus est vox relativa 
 st ad servos refertur : et deitas est dominatio dei, non 
 
 1 ebs irepie'xei rfi BouAijtrei TO TTOLV, jxei^cov ToG TTOLVTOS wGirep rrj oucri'a 
 OVTWS al afiq. EESP. AD ORTHOD. 
 
 2 Milton, Vacation Exercise, anno cetalis 19.
 
 ART AND SCIENCE. 205 
 
 in corpus proprium, uti sentiunt quibus dens est anima 
 mnndi, sed in servos. Deus summus est ens aeternum, 
 infinitum, absolute perfectum : sed ens utcunque perfec- 
 tum sine domiuio non est dominus deus. Dicimus enim 
 deus meus, deus vester, deus Israelis, deus deorum, et 
 dominus dominorum : sed non dicimus seternus meus, 
 asternus vester, seternus Israelis, aeternus deorum ; non 
 dicimus infinitus meus, vel perfectus meus. Has appel- 
 lationes relationem non habent ad servos. Vox deus 
 passim significat dominum : sed omnis dominus non est 
 deus. Dominatio entis spiritualis deum constituit, vera 
 verum, summa summum, ficta fictum. Et ex domina- 
 tione vera sequitur deum verum esse vivum, intelligen- 
 tem et potentem ; ex reliquis perfectionibus summum 
 esse, vel summe perfectum. JEternus est et infinitus, 
 omnipotens et omnisciens, id est, durat ab seterno in 
 aeternum, et adest ab infinito in infinitum : omnia regit ; 
 et omnia cognoscit quaa fiunt aut fieri possunt. Non est 
 eeternitas et infinitas, sed cetemus et infinitus ; non est 
 duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper, et 
 adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique, durationem 
 et spatium constituit. . . . 
 
 " Hunc (Deum) cognoscimus solummodo per proprie- 
 tates ejus et attributa, et per sapientissimas et optirnas 
 rerum structuras et causas finales, et admiramur ob per- 
 fectiones ; veneramur autem et colimus ob dominium. 
 Colimus enim ut servi, et deus sine domiuio, providen- 
 tia, et causis finalibus nihil aliud est quam fatum et 
 natura. A caeca necessitate metaphjsica, quae utique 
 eadem est semper et ubique, nulla oritur rerum variatio. 
 Tota rerum conditarum pro locis ac temporibus diver- 
 litas, ab ideis et voluntate entis necessario existentis 
 solummodo oriri potuit." Principia, Ed. 3 tia> pp. 528, 
 529 : London, 1726.
 
 206 ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 "Nous accordons a la raison le pouvoir de nous de- 
 montrer 1'existence du Createur, de nous instruire de ses 
 attrihuts infinis et de ses rapports avec 1'ensemble dea 
 etres ; mais par le sentiment nous entrons en quelquo 
 sorte en commerce plus intime avec lui, et son action 
 sur nous est plus immediate et plus presente. Nous 
 professons un egal eloignement et pour le mysticisme 
 qui, sacrifiant la raison au sentiment et l'homme a Dieu, 
 se perd dans les splendeurs de 1'infini et pour le pan- 
 theisme, qui refuse a Dieu les perfections memes de 
 l'homme, en admettant sous ce nom on ne sait quel etre 
 abstrait, prive de conscience et de liberte. Grace a cette 
 conscience de nous-memes et de notre libre arbitre, sur 
 laquelle se fondent a la fois et notre methode et notre 
 philosophic tout entiere, ce dieu abstrait et vague dont 
 nous venons de parler, le dieu du pantheisme devient a 
 jamais impossible, et nous voyons a sa place la Provi- 
 dence, le Dieu libre et saint que le genre humain adore, 
 le legislateur du monde moral, la source en meme temps 
 que 1'objet de cet amour insatiable du beau et du bien 
 qui se mele au fond de nos ames a des passions d'un 
 autre ordre." Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, 
 par une Societ4 des Professeurs et Savans. Preface, 
 pp. viii. ix.
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 "Agricolam laudat 
 Sub gatti cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat." 
 
 "/ would rather go back to Africa, than practise again at Pee* 
 Ues." MUNGO PARK.
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 1 
 
 T might perhaps have been better, if our hard 
 headed, hard-hitting, clever, and not over-man- 
 suete friend " Fuge Medicos " had never al- 
 lowed those " wild and stormy writings " of his to come 
 into print, and it might perhaps also have been as well, 
 had we told him so at once ; but as we are inclined to 
 be optimists when a thing is past, we think more good 
 than evil has come out of his assault and its repulse. 
 " F. M." (we cannot be always giving at full length his 
 uncouth Hoffmannism) has, in fact, in his second letter, 
 which is much the better, answered his first, and turned 
 his back considerably upon himself, by abating some of 
 his most offensive charges ; and our country doctors in 
 their replies have shown that they have sense as well as 
 spirit, and can write like gentlemen, while they of the 
 town have cordially and to good purpose spoken up for 
 their hard-working country brethren. 
 
 We are not now going to adjudicate upon the strictly 
 professional points raised by " F. M. : " whether, for 
 instance, bleeding is ever anything but mischievous ; 
 
 1 The following short paper from the Scotsman was occasioned by a 
 correspondence in that newspaper, in which doctors in general, and 
 country doctors in particular, were attacked and defended. It is re- 
 printed here as a record of the amazing facts brought out by Dr. Ali- 
 son's Association. In the attack by " Fuge Medicos," consisting of 
 two long letters, there was much ability with not much fairness, and 
 act a little misapplied energy of language, and sharpness of invective. 
 14
 
 210 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 whether the constitution, or type of disease, changes or 
 not ; whether Dr. Samuel Dickson of " the Fallacies " 
 is an impudent quack or the Newton of medicine ; 
 whether Dr. Wilkinson is an amiable and bewildered 
 Swedenborgian, with much imagination, little logic, and 
 less knowledge, and a wonderful power of beautiful 
 writing, or the herald of a new gospel of health. We 
 may have our own opinions on these subjects, but their 
 discussion lies out of our beat ; they are strictly profes- 
 sional in their essence, and ought to remain so in their 
 treatment. We are by no means inclined to deny that 
 there are ignorant and dangerous practitioners in the 
 country, as well as in the city. What we have to say 
 against " F. M." and in favor of the class he has attacked 
 is, that no man should bring such charges against any 
 large body of men, without offering such an amount and 
 kind of proof of their truth, as, it is not too much to 
 say, it is impossible for any mere amateur to produce, 
 even though that amateur were as full of will and en- 
 ergy as " F. M. ; " and unless he can do so, he stands 
 convicted of something very like what he himself calls 
 " reckless, maleficent stupidity." It is true, " F. M." 
 speaks of " ignorant country doctors ; " but his general 
 charges against the profession have little meaning, and 
 his Latin motto still less, if ignorance be not predicated 
 of country doctors in general. One, or even half a dozen 
 worthless, mischievous country doctors, is too small an 
 induction of particulars to warrant " F. M." in inferring 
 the same qualities of some 500 or more unknown men. 
 But we are not content with proving the negative : we 
 speak not without long, intimate, and extensive knowl- 
 edge of the men who have the charge of the lives of our 
 country population, when we assert, that not only are
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 211 
 
 they as a class fully equal to other rural professional 
 men in intelligence, humanity, and skill, and in all that 
 constitutes what we call worth, but that, take them all 
 in all, they are the best educated, the most useful, the 
 most enlightened, as they certainly are the worst paid 
 and hardest-worked, country doctors in Christendom. 
 Gideon Gray, in Scott's story of the " Surgeon's Daugh- 
 ter," is a faithful type of this sturdy, warm-hearted, use- 
 ful class of men, " under whose rough coat and blunt 
 exterior," as he truly says, " you find professional skill 
 and enthusiasm, intelligence, humanity, courage, and 
 science." 
 
 Moreover, they have many primary mental qualities 
 in which their more favored brethren of the city are nec- 
 essarily behind them self-reliance, presence of mind, 
 simplicity and readiness of resource, and a certain 
 homely sagacity. These virtues of the mind are, from 
 the nature of things, more likely to be fully brought out, 
 where a man must be self-contained and everything to 
 himself ; he cannot be calling in another to consult with 
 him in every anxious case, or indulge himself in the 
 luxury of that safety which has waggishly been ex- 
 pounded as attaching more to the multitude of counsel- 
 lors than to the subject of their counsel. Were this a 
 fitting place, we could relate many instances of this sa- 
 gacity, decision, and tact, as shown by men never known 
 beyond their own countryside, which, if displayed in 
 more public life, would have made their possessors take 
 their place among our public great men. 
 
 Such men as old Reid of Peebles, Meldrum of Kin- 
 cardine, Darling of Dunse, Johnston of Stirling, Clark- 
 son (the original of Gideon Gray) and Anderson of 
 Selkirk, Robert Stevenson of Gilmerton, Kirk wood of
 
 212 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 Auchterarder, and many as good these were not likely 
 to be the representatives of a class who are guilty of 
 " assaults upon life," " who are let loose upon some un- 
 happy rural district, to send vigorous men and women 
 to their graves," who " in youth have been reckless and 
 cruel, given to hanging sparrows and cats, and fit for 
 no humane profession," etc., etc. Now, is there either 
 good sense, good feeling, or good breeding, in using these 
 unmeasured terms against an entire class of men ? As- 
 suming as from the subtlety and hairsplitting charac- 
 ter of his arguments, and the sharpness and safety of his 
 epithets, we are entitled to do that " F. M. " belongs 
 to another of the learned professions, we ask, " What 
 would he say if a " Fuge Juridicos " were to rise up 
 who considered that the true reading in Scripture should 
 be, " The devil was a lawyer from the beginning," as- 
 serting that all country lawyers in Scotland were curses 
 to the community, that it would be well if the Lord Ad- 
 vocate " would try half a dozen every year " for devour- 
 ing widows' houses, and other local villanies ; and, more- 
 over, what would he think of the brains and the modesty 
 of an M. D. making an assault upon the legal profession 
 on purely professional questions, and settling, ab extra, 
 and off-hand and for ever, matters which the wisest 
 heads ab infra have left still in doubt ? The cases are 
 strictly parallel ; and it is one of the worst signs of our 
 times, this public intermeddling of everybody, from the 
 Times down to " F. M." with every science, profession, 
 and trade. Sydney Smith might now say of the public, 
 what he said of the Master of Trinity, " Science is his 
 forte, omniscience is his foible" Every profession, and 
 every man in it, knows something more and better than 
 any non-professional man can, and it is the part of a
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 213 
 
 wise man to stick to his trade. He is more likely to ex- 
 cel in it, and to honor and wonder at the skill of others. 
 For it is a beautiful law of our nature that we must 
 wonder at everything which we see well done, and yet 
 do not know how it is done, or at any rate know we 
 could not do it. Look at any art, at boot-closing, at a 
 saddler at his work, at basket-making, at our women 
 with their nimble and exact fingers somebody is con- 
 stantly doing something which everybody cannot do, and 
 therefore everybody admires. We are afraid " F. M." 
 does not know many things he could not do. 
 
 We repeat that our Gideon Grays are, as a class, 
 worthy and intelligent, skilful and safe, doing much 
 more good than evil. 1 They deserve well of, and live in 
 the hearts of, the people, and work day and night for 
 less than anybody but themselves and their wives are 
 likely ever to know, for they are most of them unknown 
 to the Income-tax collectors. They are like the rest of 
 us, we hope, soberer, better read, more enlightened, than 
 they were fifty years ago ; they study and trust Nature 
 more, and conquer her by submission ; they bleed and 
 blister less, and are more up to the doctrine that preven- 
 tion is the best of all cures. They have participated 
 in the general acknowledgment among the community, 
 thanks to the two Combes and others, and to the spirit 
 of the age, of those divine laws of Health which He 
 who made us implanted in us, and the study and obedi- 
 ence of which is a fulfilling of His word. We can only 
 hope that our clever and pancratic friend, " F. M.," if 
 on his autumn holidays in Teviotdale or Lochaber he 
 has his shoulder or his lower jaw dislocated, or has a fit 
 of colic or a hernia, or any of those ills which even his 
 i Note, p. 218.
 
 214 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 robust self is heir to, may have sense left him to send 
 for Gideon Gray, and to trust him, and, making a slight 
 alteration on his Hoffmannism, may be led to cry lustily 
 out, in worse Latin and with better sense "Fuge pro 
 Medico " Run for the Doctor ! 
 
 As already said, all of us who have been much in the 
 country know the hard life of its doctors how much 
 they do, and for how little they do it ; but we dare say 
 our readers are not prepared for the following account 
 of their unremunerated labor among paupers : 
 
 In 1846, a voluntary association of medical men was 
 formed in Edinburgh, with the public-hearted Dr. Alison 
 as chairman. Its object was to express their sympathy 
 with their brethren in the remote country districts of 
 Scotland, in regard to their unremunerated attendance 
 on paupers, and to collect accurate information on this 
 subject. The results of their benevolent exertions may 
 be found in the Appendix to the First Report of the 
 Board of Supervision. It is probably very little known 
 beyond those officially concerned ; we therefore give 
 some of its astounding and lamentable revelations. The 
 queries referred to the state and claims of the medical 
 practitioners in the rural districts of Scotland, in relation 
 to their attendance upon the permanent or occasional pa- 
 rochial poor. Out of 325 returns, 94 had received some 
 remuneration for attendance and outlay. In one of 
 these instances, the remuneration consisted of three shil- 
 lings for twelve years' attendance on seventy constant, 
 and thirteen occasional paupers ; a fine question in dec- 
 imals what would each visit come to? But worse 
 remains. One man attended 400 paupers for eight years, 
 and never received one farthing for his skill, his time, 
 or his drugs. Another has the same story to tell of
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 215 
 
 850, some of them thirty miles off ; he moderately cal- 
 culates his direct loss, from these calls on his time and 
 his purse, at 70 a year. Out of 253 who report, 208 
 state that, besides attending for nothing, they had to 
 give on occasions food, wine, and clothes, and had to 
 pay tolls, etc. 136 of the returns contain a more or less 
 definite estimate, in money value, of their unrequited 
 labors ; the sum-total given in by them amounts to thirty- 
 four thousand four hundred and fifty-seven pounds in ten 
 years! being at the rale of 238 for each! They seem 
 to have calculated the amount of medical attendance, 
 outlay, and drugs, for each pauper annually, at the very 
 moderate average of four shillings. 
 
 Is there any other country on the face of the earth 
 where such a state of matters can be found ? Such ac- 
 tive charity, such an amount of public good, is not likely 
 to have been achieved by men whose lives were little 
 else than the development of a juvenile mania for hang- 
 ing sparrows and cats. We believe we are below the 
 mark when we say, that over head, the country doctors 
 of Scotland do one third of their work for nothing, and 
 this in cases where the receiver of their attendance 
 would scorn to leave his shoes or his church seats un- 
 paid. 
 
 We are glad to see that " F. M." reads Sir William 
 Hamilton. We doubt not he does more than read him, 
 and we trust that he will imitate him in some things 
 
 O 
 
 besides his energy, his learning, and his hardihood of 
 thought. As to his and other wise men's pleasantries 
 about doctors and their drugs, we all know what they 
 mean, and what they are worth ; they are the bitter- 
 sweet joking human nature must have at those with 
 whom it has close dealings its priests, its lawyers, its
 
 216 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 doctors, its wives and husbands ; the very existence of 
 such expressions proves the opposite ; it is one of the 
 luxuries of disrespect. But in " F. M.'s " hands these 
 ancient and harmless jokes are used as deadly solemni- 
 ties upon which arguments are founded. 
 
 To part pleasantly with him, nevertheless, we give 
 him three good old jokes : The Visigoths abandoned 
 an unsuccessful surgeon to the family of his deceased 
 patient, lt ut quod de eo facere voluerint, habeant potesta- 
 tem." Montaigne, who is great upon doctors, used to 
 beseech his friends, that if he felt ill they would let him 
 get a little stronger before sending for the doctor ! Louis 
 the Fourteenth, who, of course, was a slave to his physi- 
 cians, asked his friend Moliere what he did with his 
 doctor. " Oh, Sire," said he, " when I am ill I send for 
 him. He comes, we have a chat, and enjoy ourselves. 
 He prescribes. I don't take it and I am cured ! " 
 
 We end with four quotations, which our strong-headed 
 friend " F. M.," we are sure, will cordially relish : 
 
 "In Juvene Theologo conscientise detrimentum, 
 III Juvene Legista bursse decrementum, 
 In Juvene Medico caenieterii iucretnentum." 
 
 "To imagine Nature incapable to cure diseases, is 
 blasphemy ; because that would be imputing imperfec- 
 tion to the Deity, who has made a great provision for 
 the preservation of animal life." SYDENHAM. 
 
 " When I consider the degree of patience and atten- 
 tion that is required to follow Nature in her slow man- 
 ner of proceeding, I am no longer surprised that men of 
 lively parts should be always repeating, ' Contraria ad~ 
 hibenda.' But Hippocrates says : ' Contraria pau- 
 latim adhibere oporlet, et interquiescere. Periculosius 
 censeo incidere in medicum, qui nesciat quiescere, quam
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 217 
 
 qui nesciat contraries adhibere, nam qui nescit quiescere, 
 nescit occasiones contraria adhibendi ; quare nescit con- 
 traria adhibere, Qui nescit contraria adhibere, tamen, 
 si prudens est, scit quiescere, atque si prodesse non potest, 
 tamen non obest. Prcestantissimus vero est medicus eru- 
 ditus pariter ac prudens, qui novit festinare lente ; pro 
 ipsius morbi urgentia, auxiliis instare, atque in occasions 
 uti maxime opportunis, alioque quiescere.' " GRANT ON 
 FEVERS, page 311. 
 
 " Philosophi qui vitae rationem doceant, vitiis eripiant 
 aerumnas, metus, angustias, anxietates, tristitias irnpo- 
 tentias expugnant trauquillitati, liilaritati aura/a/ceta vin- 
 dicent." STAHL. 
 
 I dou't know who " Quis " was, but the Hudibrastics 
 are vigorous : 
 
 THE COUNTRY SURGEON". 
 
 Luckless is he, whom hard fates urge on 
 
 To practise as a country surgeon 
 
 To ride regardless of all weather, 
 
 Through frost and snow, and hail together 
 
 To smile and how when sick and tired, 
 
 Consider'd as a servant hired. 
 
 At every quarter of the compass, 
 
 A surly patient makes a rumpus, 
 
 Because he is not seen the first 
 
 (For each man thinks his case the worst). 
 
 And oft at two points diametric 
 
 Called to a business obstetric. 
 
 There lies a man with broken limb, 
 
 A lady here with nervous whim, 
 
 "Who, at the acme of her fever, 
 
 Calls him a savage if he leave her. 
 
 For days and nights in some lone cottage 
 
 Condemned to live on crusts and pottage, 
 
 To kick his heels and spin his brains, 
 
 Waiting, forsooth, for labor's pains ; 
 
 And that job over, happy he,
 
 218 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 If he squeeze out a guinea fee. 
 
 Now comes the night, with toil opprest, 
 
 He seeks his bed in hope of rest ; 
 
 Vain hope, his slumbers are no more, 
 
 Loud sounds the knocker at the door, 
 
 A farmer's wife at ten miles' distance, 
 
 Shouting, calls out for his assistance; 
 
 Fretting and fuming in the dark, 
 
 He in the tinder strikes a spark, 
 
 And, as he yawning heaves his breeches, 
 
 Envies his neighbor blest with riches. 
 
 Quis, Edin. Ann. Register, 1817. 
 
 NOTE. P. 213. 
 
 I HAVE to thank his son, Dr. Henry Anderson, who now reigns in 
 his stead, for the following notes of an ordinary day's work of his 
 father, whose sister was Mungo Park's wife. Selkirk is the "Middle- 
 mas " of Sir Walter. 
 
 "Dr. Anderson practised in Selkirk for forty-five years, and never 
 refused to go to any case, however poor, or however deep in his debt, 
 and however far off. One wife in Selkirk said to her neighbors, as he 
 passed up the street, "There goes my honest doctor, that brought a' 
 my ten bairns into the world, and ne'er got a rap for ane o' them." 
 
 "His methodical habits, and perfect arrangement of his time, ena- 
 bled him to overtake his very wide practice, and to forget no one. He 
 rose generally at six every morning, often sooner, and saw his severe 
 cases in the town early, thus enabling him to start for his long jour- 
 neys ; and he generally took a stage to breakfast of fifteen or twenty 
 miles. 
 
 " One morning he left home at six o'clock, and after being three 
 miles up the Yarrow, met a poor barefoot woman, who had walked 
 from St. Mary's Loch to have two teeth extracted. Out of . his 
 pocket with his "key" (she, of course, shouting "Murder! murder! 
 mercy! ") ; down sat the good woman; the teeth were out at once, 
 and the doctor rode on his journey, to breakfast at Eldinhope, fourteen 
 miles up, calling on all his patients in Yarrow as he rode along. After 
 breakfast, by Dryhope, and along St. Mary's Loch, to the famed Tib- 
 by's, whose son was badly, up to the head of the Loch of the Lows, 
 and over the high hills into Ettrick, and riding up the Tima to Dal
 
 OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 219 
 
 gliesh, and back down the Ettrick, landed at " Gideon's o' the Singlie " 
 to dinner ; and just when making a tumbler of toddy, a boy was 
 brought into the kitchen, with a finger torn oft in a threshing-mill. 
 The doctor left after another tumbler, and still making calls about Et- 
 trickbridge, etc., reached home about eight, after riding fifty miles; 
 not to rest, however, for various messages await his return ; all are 
 visited, get medicines from him, for there were no laboratories in his 
 days, then home to prepare all the various prescriptions for those he 
 had seen during the long day. He had just finished this when off he 
 was called to a midwifery case, far up Ale Water. 
 
 " To show how pointed to time he was, one day he had to go to 
 Buccleugh, eighteen miles up the Ettrick, and haviug to ride down the 
 moors by Ashkirk, and then to go on to St. Boswell's to see old Rae- 
 burn, he wished a change of horse at Riddell fixed one o'clock, and 
 one of his sons met him at a point of the road at the very hour, though 
 he had ridden forty miles through hills hardly passable. 
 
 "I have seen him return from the head of Yarrow half frozen, and 
 not an hour in bed till he had to rise and ride back the same road, and 
 all without a murmur. 
 
 "It was all on horseback in his day, as there was only one gig in 
 the county ; and his district extended west up the valleys of Ettrick 
 and Yarrow about twenty miles ; south in Ale Water seven to ten 
 miles ; the same distance east ; and north about fourteen miles by 
 Tweedside, and banks of the Gala and Caddon. His early rising ena- 
 bled him also to get through his other work, for he made up all his 
 books at that time, had accounts ready, wrote all his business letters, 
 of which he had not a few. 
 
 " In coming home late in the night from his long journeys, he often 
 slept on horseback for miles together. In fine, he was the hardest- 
 worked man in the shire ; always cheerful, and always ready to join, 
 in any'cheerfu! and harmless amusement, as well as every good work; 
 but he killed himself by it, bringing on premature decay." 
 
 He was many years Provost of the Burgh, took his full share of 
 .Business, was the personal adviser of his patients, and had more cura- 
 torships than any one else in the county. What a pattern of active 
 beneficence, bringing up three sons to his profession, giving his family 
 a first-rate education, and never getting anything for the half of his 
 eveiyday's work ! We can fancy we see the handsome, swarthy, ruddy 
 old man coining jogging (his normal pace) on his well-known mare 
 down the Yarrow by Black Andro (a wooded hill), and past Foulshiels 
 (Mungo Park's birthplace), after being all night up the glen with some 
 ''crying wife," and the cottagers at (Jlower-ower-'im blessing him as
 
 220 -OUR GIDEON GRAYS. 
 
 he passed sound asleep, or possibly wakening him out of his dreams, to 
 come up and "lance" the bairn's eye-tooth. 
 
 Think of a man like this a valuable, an invaluable public servant, 
 the king of health in his own region having to start iu a winter's 
 night "on-ding o' snaw" for the head of Ettrick, to preside over a 
 primiparous herd's wife, at the back of Boodsbeck, who was as normal 
 and independent as her cows, or her husband's two score of cheviots ; 
 to have to put his faithful and well-bred mare (for he knew the value 
 of blood) into the byre, the door of which was secured by an old har- 
 row, or possibly in the course of the obstetric transaction by a snow- 
 drift ; to have to sit idle amid the discomforts of a shepherd's hut for 
 hours, no books, except perhaps a ten-year-old Belfast Almanac or 
 the Fourfold State (an admirable book), or a volume of ballads, all of 
 which he knew by heart, when all that was needed was, " Mrs. Jaup," 
 or indeed any neighbor wife, or her mother. True, our doctor made 
 the best of it, heard all the clavers of the country, took an interest in 
 all their interests, and was as much at home by the side of the ingle, 
 with its bit of "licht" or cannel coal, as he would be next day at 
 Bowhill with the Duchess. But what a waste of time, of health! what 
 a waste of an admirable man ! and, then, with impatient young men, 
 what an inlet to mischievous interference, to fatal curtailing of attend 
 ance 1
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 "Physick, of its own nature, has no more uncertainty or conjectur- 
 alness than these other noble professions of War, Law, Politicks, 
 Navigation, in all which the event can be no more predicted or ascer- 
 tained than in Physick. and all that the Artist is accomptable for is the 
 rational and prudent conduct that nothing be overdone or undone." 
 Epilogue to the Five Papers lately passed betwixt the two Physicians, 
 Dr. 0. and Dr. E., containing some remarks pleasant and profitable, 
 concerning the usefulness of VOMITING and PUKGIXG in FKVEKS, by 
 ANDREW BROWN, M. D.
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 HUNDRED and ninety years ago, Dr. An- 
 drew Brown, the laird of Dolphinton, was a 
 well-known and, indeed, famous man in Ed- 
 inburgh, and not unknown in London and the general 
 medical world. Who now has ever heard of him ? Sic 
 transit. To us in Edinburgh he is chiefly memorable 
 as having been the ancestor of Dr. Richard Mackenzie, 
 who perished so nobly and lamentably in the Crimea ; 
 and whose is one of the many graves which draw our 
 hearts to that bleak field of glory and havoc. We who 
 were his fellows are not likely to see again embodied so 
 much manly beauty, so much devotion to duty, so much 
 zeal, honor, and affection. 
 
 But to the profession in Scotland his great-grand- 
 father ought to be better known than he is, for he was 
 the first to introduce here the doctrines of Sydenham, 
 and to recommend the use of antimonial emetics in the 
 first stage of fever. This he did in a little book called 
 " A Vindicatory Schedule concerning the new euro of 
 Fevers, containing a disquisition, theoretical and practi- 
 cal, of the new and most effectual method of cureing 
 continual fevers, first invented and delivered by the sa- 
 gacious Dr. Thomas Sydenham." Edin. 1691. 
 
 This book, and its author's energetic advocacy of its 
 principles by his other writings and by his practice, gave 
 rise to a fierce controversy ; and in the library of the
 
 224 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 Edinburgh College of Physicians, there is a stout, shabby 
 little volume of pamphlets, on both sides <( Replies," 
 and " Short Answers," and " Refutations," and " Sur- 
 veys," and " Looking-glasses," " Defences," " Letters," 
 " Epilogues," etc., lively and furious once, but now rest- 
 ing together as quietly and as dead as their authors are 
 in the Old Greyfriars church-yard, having long ceased 
 from troubling. There is much curious, rude, vigorous, 
 hard-headed, bad-Englished stuff in them, with their 
 wretched paper and print, and general ugliness ; much, 
 also, to make us thankful that we are in our own now, 
 not their then. Such tearing away with strenuous logic 
 and good learning, at mere clouds and shadows, with 
 occasional lucid intervals of sense, observation, and wit, 
 tending too frequently to wul. 
 
 Brown was a Whig, and a friend of Andrew Fletcher 
 and King William ; and in his little book on " The 
 Character of the True Publick Spirit," besides much 
 honest good sense and advanced politics, there is a 
 clever and edifying parallel drawn between the diseases 
 of the body politic and those of the body natural, and 
 also an amusing classification of doctors ; 1 but for all 
 this, and much more excellent matter, I have no space 
 here. Dr. Brown thus describes his going up to London 
 to visit Sydenham, and see his practice : 
 
 "But in the year 1687, perusing the first edition of 
 his Schedula Monitoria, where he delivers, as confirmed 
 by manifold experience, not only a new, but a quite con- 
 trarie method to the common, of curing Continual Fe- 
 vers : I did long hesitate, thinking that either he or all 
 other Physicians were grossly deceived about the cure 
 of Fevers; if not, as their patients used to be, they 
 l Xote, page 232.
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 225 
 
 were in an high delirum ; and lest the preconceived 
 opinion that I had of the man's ingenuity should so far 
 impose upon my credulity as to draw me into an error 
 likeways with him, and make me to experiment that 
 method, when I knew not but I might run the hazard 
 to sacrifice some to my temerity, nothing could settle 
 my tossed thoughts below the sight and knowledge of 
 the thing itself. 
 
 " Presently, therefore, hastening to London, and hav- 
 ing met with the man, and exposed the occasion of my 
 coming, I found all these tokens concerning him and his 
 practice, that use to beget unwarry persons and prudent 
 people making serious inquiry, trust, and knowledge. 
 Then, after some months spent in this society, returning 
 home as much overjoyed as I had gotten a treasure, I 
 presently set myself to that practice : which has proved 
 so successful to me, that since that time, of the many 
 fevers that I have treated, none were uncured, except 
 my Lord Creichton, whose case is related here ; and 
 another woman, whose dangerous circumstances made 
 her condition hopeless." 
 
 There is a well-known story of Sydenham. which 
 goes by the name of " The Lettsom Anecdote." Dr. 
 Latham says it was communicated by Dr. Lettsom to 
 the Gentleman's Magazine of August 1801, and was 
 copied by him from the fly-leaf of a copy of the Metho- 
 dus curandi febris, which had been in the possession of 
 Dr. Sherson's family for fifty years. He then quotes 
 the story. I was much surprised and pleased to find the 
 original in Dr. Brown's Vindicatory Schedule. It dif- 
 fers in some respects from the second-hand one, and no 
 one after reading it can have any doubts that Sydenham 
 bore arms for the Commonwealth. 
 15
 
 226 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 Dolphin ton (as he was called by his townsmen) writes 
 as follows : 
 
 " Neither can it go well away with good men, to think, 
 that this great man, so oft by strange and special Provi- 
 dences pluckt out of the very jaws of death, has been 
 preserved for an imposture, so dismale to mankind : 
 Tho' I cannot stay to reckon all the dangers among the 
 calamities of the late civil warrs (where he was an 
 actor) that passed with great difficulty over his head, 
 as his being left in the field among the dead, and many 
 other dangers he met with : yet there is one that, repre- 
 senting rather a miracle than a common providence, 
 cannot be passed over, which, as I had from his own 
 mouth, is thus, at the same time of these civil warrs, 
 where he discharged the office of a captain, he being in 
 his lodging at London, and going to bed at night, with 
 his cloaths loosed, a mad drunk fellow, a souldier, like- 
 wise in the same lodging, entering the room, with one 
 hand gripping him by the breast of his shirt, with the 
 other discharged a loaden pistol in his bosome, yet, O 
 strange ! without any hurt to him, most wonderfully in- 
 deed, by such a narrow sheild as the edge of the soul- 
 dier's hand, was his breast defended ; for the admirable 
 providence of God placed and fixed the tottering hand 
 that gripped the shirt into that place and posture, that 
 the edge thereof and all the bones of the metacarpe that 
 make up the breadth of the hand, were situate in a right 
 line betwixt the mouth of the pistol and his breast, and 
 so the bullet discharged neither declining to the one 
 side nor to the other, but keeping its way thorrow all 
 these bones, in crushing them lost its force, and fell at 
 his feet. O ! wonderful situation of the hand, and more 
 wonderful course of the bullet ! by any industry or art
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 227 
 
 never again imitable ! And moreover within a few days 
 the souldier, taken with a fever arising from so danger- 
 ous and complicat a wound, died ; surely Providence 
 does not bring furth so stupendous miracles, but for 
 some great and equivalent end." 
 
 We may take the Doctor's facts without homologat- 
 ing his conclusions. There is nothing here indicating 
 on what side Sydenham served, but all the probabilities 
 from family connection, from his own incidental expres- 
 sions and other circumstances, and his having to flee 
 from Oxford, the headquarters of the Royalists, etc., go 
 to make it more than likely that he was what his labo- 
 rious, ineffectual, and latest biographer calls, in his un- 
 wieldly phrase, a " Parliamentarian." 
 
 This passage is followed by a remarkable statement 
 by Dr. Brown, as to the persecution of Sydenham by 
 his brethren. This is peculiarly valuable as coming from 
 one personally acquainted with the great physician, hav- 
 ing heard these things " from his own mouth," and being 
 published two years after his death. Dr. Latham can- 
 not now have any doubt as to the envy and uncharitable- 
 ness of the profession, and the endeavor of his " collegi- 
 ate brethren " to banish him out of " that illustrious 
 society " for " medicinal heresie." I give the entire 
 passage, as I have never before seen it noticed. 
 
 " And further can it be thought that this great man, 
 who in all the course of his life gave so full evidence of 
 an ingenuous, generous, and perspicatious spirit, would 
 or could die an imposter and murderer of mankind 
 (which imputation to deserve, he frequently professed, 
 would be more heavy to him than any punishment could 
 be), for he it was, despising the blandishments of the 
 world, popular applause, riches, and honor, yea his own
 
 228 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 health wasted with intense and assiduous meditations 
 and thoughtfulness, that liberally sacrificed them all for 
 the publick good : In so far, that after he had long 
 weighed and expended the common and received meth- 
 ods of curing most diseases, and therefore had forsaken 
 and relinquished them as vain and improper, and after 
 his intimate search into the bowels of nature he had dis- 
 covered others more aposite and powerful ; He thereby 
 only gained the sad and unjust recompence of calumny 
 and ignominy ; and that from the emulation of some of 
 his collegiate brethren, and others, whose indignation at 
 length did culminat to that hight, that they endeavored 
 to banish him, as guilty of medicinal heresie, out of that 
 illustrious society ; and by the whisperings of others he 
 was baulked the imployment in the Royal Family, where 
 before that he was called among the first physicians." 
 
 He then names those who had publicly given in their 
 adhesion to the new doctrines Dr. Goodal, Dr. Brady, 
 Dr. Paman, Dr. Cole, Dr. Ettmuller of Leipsic, Dr. 
 Doleus, physician to the Landgrave of Hesse, Dr. Spon 
 of Lyons, Dr. Michelthwait of London, Dr. Morton, 
 and Dr. Harris; all these before 1691. 
 
 Amid the dreary unreadable rubbish in this old bun- 
 dle, there is a most characteristic onslaught by the 
 famous Dr. George Cheyne upon Dr. Oliphant, Dolphin- 
 ton's friend and defender ; it is his pugilistic, honest, 
 reckless style, and is valuable for the testimony he 
 (at this time) a free-thinker in religion, and a mathemat- 
 ical and mechanical physician (he is defending Dr. Pit- 
 cairn) gives to the strictly Divine origin of animal 
 species. " All animals, of what kind soever, were origi- 
 nally and actually created at once by the hand of Al- 
 mighty God, it being impossible to account for their
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 229 
 
 production by any laws of mechanism : and that every 
 individual animal has, in minimis, actually included in 
 its loins all those who shall descend from it, and every 
 one of these again have all their offspring lodged in 
 their loins, and so on ad infinitum ; and that all these 
 infinite numbers of animalcules may be lodged in the 
 bigness of a pin's head." Our own Owen would relish 
 this intrepid and robust old speculator. But the jewel 
 of this old book is a letter from a physician at London, 
 appended to Dr. Oliphant's answer to the pretended re- 
 futation of his defence. I am sure my readers will agree 
 with the Doctor, that it is " neither impertinent nor tedi- 
 ous," and that it must have been written " by one whose 
 wit and good humor are equal to his learning and inge- 
 nuity." 
 
 There was one man in London, a young Scotch phy- 
 sician, who could have written this, and we may say, 
 Aut Arbut/inot, out quis ? All the chances are in favor 
 of its being that famous wit and admirable man, of 
 whom Pope says, " Swift said ' he could do everything 
 but walk ; ' " and Pope himself thinks he was " as good 
 a doctor as any man for one that is ill, and a better doc- 
 tor for one that is well." He had shortly before this 
 gone up to London from Aberdeen, and had published 
 in 1697, his examination of Dr. Woodward's Account of 
 the Deluge. 
 
 " DEAR SIB, I thank you for the present of your 
 small Treatise about Vomiting in Fevers, but at the 
 same time I approve of your reasons, you must give me 
 leave to condemn your conduct : I know you begin to 
 storm at this ; but have a little patience. There was a 
 physician of this town, perhaps the most famous in his
 
 230 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 time, being called to his patient, complaining (it may 
 be) of an oppression at his stomach ; he would very 
 safely and cautiously order him a decoction of carduus, 
 sometimes hot water ; I don't know but he would allow 
 now and then fat mutton broth too. The patient was 
 vomited, and the doctor could justifie himself that he 
 had not omitted that necessary evacuation ; this was his 
 constant practice. Being chid by his collegues, who 
 well knew he neglected antimony, not out of ignorance 
 or fear, he would roguishly tell them, ' Come, come, 
 gentlemen, that might cure my patient, but it would kill 
 the distemper, and I should have less money in my 
 pocket. A pretty business indeed, a rich citizen over- 
 gorges himself, which by management may be improved 
 into a good substantial fever, worth at least twenty guin- 
 eas ; and you would have me nip the plant in the bud, 
 have a guinea for my pains, and lose the reputation of a 
 safe practitioner to boot.' The gentleman had reason, 
 all trades must live. Alas ! our people here are grown 
 too quick-sighted, they will have antimonial vomits, and 
 a physician dares not omit them, tho' it is many a good 
 fee out of his pocket. Join, I say, with these wise gen- 
 tlemen ; they wish well to the Faculty ; procure an 
 order of the Colledge, and banish antimony the city of 
 Edinburgh, and the liberties thereof. 'Tis a, barbarous 
 thing in these hard times to strangle an infant distem- 
 per; they ought no more to be murdered than young 
 cattle in Lent. Let it be as great a crime to kill a 
 fever with an autimonial vomit, as to fish in spawning 
 time. The Dutch physicians are like the rest of their 
 nation wise ; they banish that heathenish Jesuitical drug, 
 that would quickly reduce their practice to a narrow 
 compass in the hopefulest distemper of the country
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND STDENHAM. 231 
 
 These rogues that dream of nothing but specificks and 
 panaceas, I would have them all hang'd, not so much 
 for the folly of the attempt, as the malice of their inten- 
 tion ; rascals, to starve so many worthy gentlemen, that 
 perhaps know no otherwise to get their livelihood. Will 
 the glasiers ever puzzle themselves to make glass malle- 
 able, would the knitters ever so much as have dreamed 
 of a stocking-loom, or the young writers petition'd to 
 have informations printed ; all those are wise in their 
 generation, and must the physicians be the only fools ? 
 
 "We all know,here there is no danger in antimonial 
 vomits, but this is inter nos ; you must not tell your pa- 
 tient so ; let him believe, as I said before, that anti- 
 monial vomits are dangerous, deleterial, break the fibres 
 of the stomach, etc., and that you cannot safely give 
 them. So shall you be stiled a cautious, safe physician, 
 one that won't spoil the curll of a man's hair to pull 
 him out of the river. We have some dangerous dogs 
 here, that in a quinsy, when a man is ready to be chock'd, 
 will blood him forty ounces at once: is not this ex- 
 treamly hazardous? They cut off limbs; cut for the 
 stone ; is this safe ? I tell you, the reputation of a 
 wary, safe physician is worth all the parts of his char- 
 acter besides. Now I hope you will allow I have reason 
 for what I said. 
 
 " I have seen the Melius Inquirendum, and am too 
 well acquainted with the stile and spelling, not to know 
 that it is Dr. Eyzat's ; but here I must be with you 
 again : how come you to write against one that says two 
 drams of emetick wine is a sufficient doze for a man ? 
 Suffer not such things to come abroad ; they will imag- 
 ine you are not got so far as the circulation of the blood 
 in Scotland; write seriously against such people. Fy
 
 232 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 
 
 upon't, I will never allow them to be above the dispen- 
 sation of ballads and doggrel, etc. I am, Sir, yours, etc. 
 "LONDON, August 23, 1699." 
 
 Nothing can be finer than the edge of this, nothing 
 pleasanter than its pleasantry ; that about murdering 
 young cattle in Lent, and the " curll," is Charles Lamb 
 all over ; we know no one nowadays who could write 
 thus, except the author of Esmond. 
 
 NOTE. P. 224. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF DOCTORS 
 
 1. THOSE who drive the trade of bon companionrie and good-fellow- 
 ship. 2. The high-flown bigots in religion or State. 3. Hangers-on 
 of great families, "as having been domesticks!" 4. Those of "a 
 gentile meen." Here is Dr. Beddoes' more elaborate latrologia, or 
 Linnsean method of physicians, like Baron Born's, of the Monks. 
 
 1. The philanthropic doctor, having two varieties, a. and 0, the shy 
 and the renegado. 2. The bullying D., with Radcliffe at their head. 
 3. The Bacchanalian D. 4. The solemn D. 5. The club-hunting D. 
 6. The Burr D., centaurea calcitrapa. 7. The wheedling D., with the 
 variety of the Adonis wheedling D. 8. The case-coining D. 9. The 
 good-sort-of-man D., with variety, and the gossiping good-sort-of-man 
 D., who "fetches and carries scandal." 10. The sectarian D. ; vari- 
 ety a, the inspired sectarian D. 
 
 Beddoes concludes this Decade of Doctors, with notandum est in toto 
 hoc genere naturam mirabiles edere lusvs. This is applicable to all 
 the species, there being mules and hybrids, and occasionally monsters 
 magnificent and dreadful, like Paracelsus. 
 
 Hartley Coleridge, in his pleasant Life of Fothergill, after alluding 
 to this latrology, has the following on the exoteric qualifications of a 
 doctor : 
 
 " Of these exoteric qualifications, some are outward and visible; as 
 a good gentlemanl} r person, not alarmingly handsome (for the Adonis 
 Doctor, though he has a fair opening to a wealthy marriage, seldom 
 greatly prospers in the way of business), with an address to suit 
 *hat is to say, a genteel self-possession and subdued politeness, not of
 
 DR. ANDREW BROWN AND SYDENHAM. 233 
 
 the very last polish a slow, low, and regular tone of voice (here Dr. 
 Fothergill's Quaker habits must have been an excellent preparative), 
 and such an even flow of spirits as neither to be dejected by the sight 
 of pain and the weight of responsibility, nor to offend the anxious and 
 the suffering by an unsympathetic hilarity. The dress should be neat. 
 and rather above than below par in costliness. 
 
 " In fine, the young physician should carry a something of his pro- 
 fession in his outward man, but yet so that nobody should be able to 
 say what it was."
 
 FREE COMPETITION IN MEDICINE. 
 
 " That doctors are sometimes fools as well as other people, {s not, in 
 the present times, one of those profound secrets which is known only to 
 the learned ; it very seldom happens that a man trusts his health to an. 
 other, merely because that other is an M. D. The person so trusted 
 has almost always either some knowledge, or some craft, which would 
 procure him nearly the same trust, though he was not decorated with 
 any such title ! Adieu- ! my dear doctor ; I am afraid I shall get my 
 lug (ear) in my lufe (hand), as we say, for what I have written." 
 ADAM SMITH to DB. CULLEN, September 20, 1774. 
 
 " Lawyers, soldiers, tax-gatherers, policemen, are appendages of a 
 state, and some account should be taken of them by the civil power. 
 The clergy are officers of the church, and if the church is a divine in- 
 stitution, they should have her license. Doctors are the ministers of 
 physical humanity at large, and should, for a thousand good reasons, 
 be left under the jurisdiction of the leviathanic man whom they serve, 
 yet under this condition, that they shall be answerable to the civil power 
 for bodily injuries culpably inflicted upon any of its subjects.'" Cov- 
 
 ENTKY DlCK.
 
 FREE COMPETITION IN MEDICINE. 
 
 HAVE long thought that it was nonsense an> 
 worse, the avowed and universal exception o 
 the craft of healing from the action of Adanr 
 Smith's law of free competition, introducing legislativ< 
 enactment and license into the public relations of medi 
 cine, thus constituting a virtual monopoly. I may ba 
 permitted to express this in an extract from a Review 
 of Professor Syme and Dr. Burt's Letters to Lord Pal- 
 merston, on Medical Reform. 1 
 
 " And now for a closing word for ourselves. Mr 
 Syme's scheme is, as we have fully stated, the best, the 
 simplest, and the least objectionable, if it be wise and 
 necessary for the State to do anything in the matter. 
 There is much in this if; and after consideration of this 
 difficult and little-understood subject, we are inclined to 
 hold, that Adam Smith's law of free competition is ab- 
 solute, and applies to the doctors of the community as 
 well as to its shoemakers. In a letter to Dr. Cullen, 
 published for the first time by Dr. John Thomson, in 
 his life of that great physician, written before the pub' 
 lication of The Wealth of Nations, he, with excellent 
 humor, argument, and sense, asserts that human nature 
 may be allowed safely, and with advantage, to choose 
 its own doctor, as it does its own wife or tailor. We 
 recommend this sagacious letter to the serious attention 
 1 Edinburgh Medical Journal December, 1857.
 
 238 FREE COMPETITION IN MEDICINE. 
 
 of all concerned. We give some specimens ; its date is 
 1774 : ' When a man has learned his lesson well, it 
 surely can be of little importance where, or from whom 
 he has learnt it. ... In the Medical College of Edin- 
 burgh, in particular, the salaries of the professors are 
 insignificant, and their monopoly of degrees is broken 
 in upon by all other universities, foreign and domestic. 
 I require no other explication of its present acknowl- 
 edged superiority over every other society of the same 
 kind in Europe. ... A degree can pretend to give se- 
 curity for nothing but the science of the graduate, and 
 even for that it can give but very slender security. For 
 his good sense and discretion, qualities not discoverable 
 by an academical examination, it can give no security 
 at all. . . . Had the Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge been able to maintain themselves in the exclusive 
 privilege of graduating all the doctors who could prac- 
 tise in England, the price of feeling a pulse might have 
 by this time risen from two and three guineas ' (would 
 that ' Time would run back and fetch that age of gold ! ') 
 ' the price which it has now happily arrived at, to double 
 or triple that sum. . . . The great success of quackery 
 in England has been altogether owing to the real quack- 
 ery of the regular physicians. Our regular physicians 
 in Scotland have little quackery, and no quack, accord- 
 ingly, has ever made his fortune among us.' 
 
 "Dr. Thomson did not find in Dr. Cullen's papers 
 any direct replies to the arguments of his friend ; but in 
 a Latin discourse pronounced two years afterwards, at 
 the graduation, he took occasion to state in what respects 
 the principles of free competition, though applicable to 
 mechanical trades, do, in his opinion, not extend to the 
 exercise of the profession of medicine. His argument
 
 FREE COMPETITION IN MEDICINE. 239 
 
 is conducted temperately, and by no means confidently. 
 He remarks, with sagacity and candor, ' that there are 
 some who doubt whether it is for the interest of society, 
 or in any way proper, to make laws or regulations for 
 preventing unskilled or uneducated persons from engag- 
 'ng in the practice of medicine ; and it is very obviou* 
 that neither in this nor in most other countries, are effec- 
 tual measures adopted for this purpose.' His argument 
 is the common and we think unsound one, that mankind 
 can judge of its carpenter, but not of its doctor; and 
 that in the one case, life is at stake, and not in the 
 other, a fallacy easily exposed a floor may fall in and 
 kill dozens, from bad joinery, as well as a man die from 
 mala praxis. We believe that the same common sense 
 regulates, or at least may regulate, the choice of your 
 family doctor, as it does the choice of your architect, 
 engineer, or teacher. 
 
 " If a man choose his architect or engineer from his 
 own personal knowledge of their respective arts and sci- 
 ences, he must either choose himself, and forget his 
 stair, or make very sure of choosing the wrong man ; in 
 this, as in so many things, we depend on testimony and 
 general evidence of capacity and worth. 
 
 " In a word, our petition to Parliament is, Make a 
 clean sweep ; remove every legislative enactment re- 
 garding the practice of medicine ; leave it as free, as 
 unprotected, as unlicensed, as baking or knife-grinding ; 
 let our Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, Faculties, 
 and Worshipful Companies, make what terms they like 
 for those who choose to enter them ; let the Horse 
 Guards, let the Customs, let the Poor Law Boards, let 
 the Cunard Company, demand and exact any qualifica- 
 tion they choose for the medical men they employ and
 
 240 FREE COMPETITION IN MEDICINE. 
 
 pay, just as Lord Breadalbane may, if he like, require 
 red hair and Swedenborgism, in his Lordship's surgeon 
 to his slate quarries at Easdale. Give the principle its 
 full swing, and, by so doing, be assured we would lose 
 some of our worst Quacks ; but we would not lose our 
 Alisons, our Symes, our Christisons, Begbies, and Kil- 
 gours, or our Brodies, Lathams, Brights, Watsons, and 
 Clarks ; and we would, we are persuaded, have more of 
 the rough-and-readies, as Dr. Burt calls them. Gideon 
 Gray would have an easier mind, and more to feed him- 
 self and his horse on, and his life would be more largely 
 insured for his wife and children. And if from the 
 corporate bodies, who are trying to live after they are 
 dead, the ancient cry of compensation rises up wild and 
 shrill, give the Belisarii their pence, and let them be 
 contemptible and content." 
 
 But let there be no interference, under the name of 
 qualification or license, with free trade in medical knowl- 
 edge and skill. There is in the body politic, as in the 
 body natural, a self-regulating power to which we ought 
 to take heed, and trust its instincts, and not our own 
 contrivances. This holds in religion, in public morals, 
 in education ; and we will never prosper as we might 
 till we take the advice Henry Taylor relates that an old 
 lady of rank gave to her anxious daughter-in-law, when 
 asked by her what she would advise as to the education 
 of children : " I would advise, my dear, a little whole- 
 some neglect."
 
 EDWARD FORBES. 
 
 "Nature never did betray 
 
 The heart that loved her ; 't is her privilege, 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 From joy to joy : for she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
 Hash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
 Is full of blessings." 
 
 WOBDSWOETH. 
 
 16
 
 EDWARD FORBES. 1 
 
 E have too long delayed noticing the memoir 
 of this delightful man the gifted teacher, 
 the consummate naturalist. Indeed, it is so 
 long now since we read it, and so long since all the 
 world has done so, that we cannot and need not go into 
 the details of his life and history, or into any minute 
 criticism of the treatment of their theme by his two bi- 
 ographers, Dr. George Wilson and Mr. Geikie. 
 
 It is an interesting and a likeable book, loose in its 
 texture in the first half, from the natural tendency, on 
 the part of its genial author, to expatiate and effloresce ; 
 and deficient necessarily in personality in the second, 
 which, however, is most ably and thoroughly done from 
 its writer's point of view, just, painstaking, and full of 
 excellent science. Mr. Geikie's genius is mainly geolog- 
 ical, and it is well that it is so ; but he writes with 
 clearness and force ; and judgment in its own place is 
 always better than genius out of it. There are exquisite 
 bits, perfect flowers for fragrance and beauty in Dr. Wil- 
 son's sketch. The account of Edinburgh College life, 
 and all about that great and primary man, that master 
 in natural history, Professor Jameson, a man of rare 
 purity, and force of life and purpose, and most genuinely 
 good, is quick with our lost friend's fine play of fancy, 
 and his affectionate humor ; but it labors, as we all to 
 1 From The Scotsman.
 
 244 EDWARD FORBES. 
 
 our sorrow know, under the loss of his revision. The 
 first chapter, on the Isle of Man and its tailless cats, is 
 out of all proportion, and with its information and fun 
 is more suited to the Odds and Ends of a Manx his- 
 torian of the Knickerbocker breed, than to the work 
 of a steady biographer. The next chapter, on Edward 
 Forbes's infant and boyish years, is finely done, devel- 
 oping with a tender and firm touch the natural bent of 
 his mind, and showing how truly " the child is father of 
 the man." 
 
 Edward Forbes was one of four men who studied to- 
 gether at Edinburgh, all bound together closely, but 
 each curiously different from the rest. Samuel Brown, 
 George Wilson, and John Goodsir were the others. 
 The last in many respects the greatest, certainly the 
 completest and most satisfying still lives, one of the 
 main glories of our medical school, a man who will 
 leave a name not unworthy to be placed alongside of 
 John Hunter's. He has no speciality, but is a true dis- 
 serner and discoverer of nature, a teacher of what he 
 himself knows. It is impossible to overrate his influence 
 in our medical school in grounding the students in a 
 genuine anatomy, and in basing speculation of the widest, 
 the most daring, and transcendental kind upon down- 
 right matter of fact. 
 
 Edward Forbes was a child of Nature, and he lived in 
 her presence and observance. She was his Alma Mater 
 to the end. He enjoyed science ; this was the chief end 
 to him of life ; its bloom, and its fruit, and its own ex- 
 ceeding great reward. 
 
 George Wilson made science enjoyable to others ; he 
 illustrated, adorned, and commended it ; standing, as it 
 were, with his face to the world, he told what of the
 
 EDWARD FORBES. 245 
 
 mystery and truth of science it could or cared to know 
 and itsfacetice too, for he was an inveterate wag, 
 having more wit than humor, and less imagination than 
 fancy. 
 
 Samuel Brown was his typical reverse. He stood 
 with his back to the public, intent at the high altar of 
 his service, bent on questioning, on divination, and on 
 making nature reveal her secret. He worked up the 
 stream ; his was that science of sciences which is philos- 
 ophy proper. He desired to bring knowledge to a 
 point, to draw all multiformity into the focus of unity. 
 
 Goodsir advances it as a whole, and makes it our in- 
 heritance, while he enriches it with something from the 
 stores of his other brethren. 
 
 In an eloquent and tender eloge upon Dr. Samuel 
 Brown, in the North British Review for February 1857, 
 there is quoted from his private journal, with which he 
 whiled away his long hours of languor, solitude, and 
 pain, the following portrait of his former colleague and 
 companion, written on hearing of his sudden death. 
 Surely if there is much matter like this in that journal, 
 xhe world would like to have more of it some day. 
 
 '' Edward Forbes is dead and buried before me ; 
 died this day week, was buried on Thursday. ( He be- 
 haved at the close with his old composure, considerate- 
 ness, and sweetness of nature,' writes Dr. John. This 
 is a great public loss, a pungent public grief too ; but 
 to us, his friends, it is ' past the blasphemy of grief.' 
 Surely it is ' wondrous in our eyes.' Not forty yet ; 
 his work sketched out largely, rather than done : his 
 proper career, as the Edinburgh Professor of Natural 
 History, just opened, and that with unusual brilliancy of 
 circumstance, Edinburgh, young and old, proud to
 
 246 EDWARD FORBES. 
 
 receive him as her new great man, the Naturalists 
 of Scotland rising up to call the Manxman blessed 
 ' The pity of it, oh the pity of it ! ' 
 
 " We began our public career almost together. He 
 in his twenty-fifth, I in my twenty-third year, delivered 
 at Edinburgh a joint course of lectures on the Philoso- 
 phy of the Sciences, he the graphic or static, I the 
 principal or dynamic hemisphere of the round. Tall for 
 his strength, slightly round-shouldered, slightly in-bent 
 legs, but elegant, with a fine round head and long face, 
 a broad, beautifully arched forehead, long dim-brown 
 hair like a woman's, a slight moustache, no beard, long- 
 limbed, long-fingered, lean, such was one of the most 
 interesting figures ever before an Edinburgh audience. 
 His voice was not good, his manner not flowing, not 
 even easy. He was not eloquent, but he said the right 
 sort of thing in a right sort of way ; and there was such 
 an air of mastery about him, of genius, of geniality, of 
 unspeakable good nature, that he won all hearts, and 
 subdued all minds, and kept all imaginations prisoners 
 for life. Nobody that has not heard him can conceive 
 the charm. 
 
 " In natural history his labors are acknowledged by 
 his peers ; and it is not for a chemist to say a word. 
 Vet I fancy he has made no memorable discovery, ini- 
 tiated no critical movement. It is by the width of his 
 views he has told, and by his personal influence. In 
 short, he is a first-rate naturalist, near-sighted and far- 
 sighted, and eminently disposed and able to reduce the 
 chaos of observation to order, and to discern the one 
 soul of nature in all her manifold body of members; 
 but he has not shown himself inventive, like Linnaeus 
 or Cuvier, or even Buffon. His true greatness was cu-
 
 EDWARD FORBES. 247 
 
 mulative ; and if he had lived as long, he might have 
 rivalled Humboldt. As it is, he was not a philosopher, 
 nor a great discoverer ; but he was a consummate and 
 philosophical naturalist, wider than any man alive in his 
 kind. Add to that noble distinction, that he was much 
 of an artist, not a little of a man of letters, something 
 of a scholar, a humorist, the very most amiable of men, 
 
 perfect gentleman, and a beautiful pard-like creature, 
 'a.id you have our Hyperion, gone down, alas ! ere it 
 was yet noon ! After all, what a combination of charms ! 
 what a constellation of gifts! what a man! Edward 
 Forbes was a sweet, wise, broad, and sunny great kind 
 of man, else I do not know a nobleman when I see him. 
 
 " As for religion, I can only say he never talked in- 
 fidelities, even in our rash youth. He always abided by 
 the church, though he rarely frequented its tabernacles. 
 He was a kind of half-intellectual, half-sesthetical be- 
 liever. Theology somehow did not lie in his way ; and 
 he was (as I conceive) sincere, rather than earnest, in 
 religion. There lay his great defect ; since all are but 
 fragments after all that can be said even of a Shake- 
 speare. He wanted intensity of character, depth of soul, 
 spirituality ; and it is curious in a man so large. 
 
 " And in connection with this lay one of the secrets of 
 Forbes's boundless popularity. He was a conformist, 
 ran against no man or thing. He joined no new cause, 
 he assailed no old one ; nay, he even assailed no new 
 pne. All were welcome to him, therefore, and he to all. 
 Even in Natural History he brought no agitating or 
 perplexing news, perplexing men with the fear of 
 change. He sailed nobly with the wind and tide of or- 
 dinary progress, not needing to carry a single gun, but 
 the foremost of this peaceful fleet. This was all very
 
 248 EDWARD FORBES. 
 
 delightful and wise ; yet let a word be said for the men 
 of war, John Kepler and the rest ; and also let a dis- 
 tinction betwixt the two orders of men be remembered. 
 To forget such distinctions is to confound the morality of 
 criticism. He of Nazareth, not to be profane, brought 
 'not peace, but a sword/ the Divine image of 'the 
 greater sort of greatness.' " 
 
 This is to the life, delicate and keen, like a Holbein 
 or Van Eyck. The description of his person is curiously 
 accurate, the fine round head, the long face, the long, 
 dim-brown hair like a woman's, etc. 
 
 To conclude, there is material in this volume for a 
 short and compact life of Forbes. You feel you know 
 him and hear him ; see him singing, or rather crooning, 
 his odd genial songs ; playing with his subject, with 
 everything, making his pen laugh out of those droll tail- 
 pieces and overflowings of fun ; clever, but vague, fee- 
 ble in outline, but full of the man. We have had a 
 melancholy pleasure in giving ourselves up to this book, 
 and thinking how much the world has gained in him, 
 and lost. 
 
 The differences between natural history and analyt- 
 ical science are sufficiently distinct where they are far- 
 thest from each other ; but, as is the case in all partitions 
 of knowledge, they get less marked where they approach 
 at the " marches." Therefore it is hardly fair to say 
 that Edward Forbes was merely a master in natural 
 history, not also in science proper, the truth rather be- 
 ing that he was more of the first than of the second. 
 The difference of the two knowledges is very much the 
 difference between listening to what nature sponta- 
 neously says to you. that philosophy, which, as Bacon 
 has it, " repeats the words of the universe itself with
 
 EDWARD FORBES. 249 
 
 the utmost fidelity, and is written, as it were, by dic- 
 tation of the universe," and between putting questions 
 to her, often very cross-questions ; putting her, in fact, 
 to the torture, and getting at her hidden things. The 
 one is more of the nature of experience, of that which 
 is a methodized record of appearances ; the other more 
 of experiment of that which you, upon some hypoth- 
 esis, expect to find, and has more to do with intimate 
 composition and action. Still this parallelism must not 
 be run out of breath ; both of them have chiefly to do 
 with the truth of fact, more than with the truth of 
 thought about fact, or about itself, which is philosophy, 
 or with the truth of imagination, which is ideal art, fab- 
 ricated by the shaping spirit from fact, and serving for 
 delectation. The world is doing such a large business 
 in the first two of these departments, natural history 
 and pure science, that we are somewhat in danger 
 of forgetting altogether the third, which is of them all 
 the greatest, and of misplacing and misinterpreting the 
 fourth. 
 
 Science is ultimately most useful when it goes down 
 into practice becomes technical, and is utilized ; or 
 blossoms into beauty, or ascends into philosophy and 
 religion, and rests in that which is in the highest sense 
 good, spiritual, and divine, leaving the world wiser and 
 happier, as well as more powerful and knowing, than it 
 found it. 
 
 We end by quoting from this memoir the following 
 noble passage, by that master of science and of style, 
 our own Playfair, in his account of Dr. Hutton. It is 
 singularly appropriate. 
 
 " The loss sustained by the death of this great natu- 
 ralist was aggravated to those who knew him by the con*
 
 250 EDWARD FORBES. 
 
 sideration of how much of his knowledge had perished 
 with himself, and notwithstanding all that he had writ 
 ten, how much of the light collected by a life of expe 
 rience and observation was now completely extinguished. 
 It is, indeed, melancholy to reflect, that with all who 
 make proficiency in the sciences, founded on nice and 
 delicate observations, something of this sort must inva- 
 riably happen. The experienced eye, the power of 
 perceiving minute differences and fine analogies which 
 discriminate or unite the objects of science, and the 
 readiness of comparing new phenomena with others 
 already treasured up in the mind, these are accom- 
 plishments which no rules can teach, and no precepts 
 can put us in possession of. This is a portion of knowl- 
 edge which every man must acquire for himself ; nobody 
 can leave as an inheritance to his successor. It seems, 
 indeed, as if Nature had, in this instance, admitted an 
 exception to the will by which she has ordained the 
 perpetual accumulation of knowledge among civilized 
 men, and had destined a considerable portion of science 
 eontinually to grow up, and perish with individuals."
 
 DR. ADAMS OF BANOHORT. 
 
 SCENE. A hut in the wilds ofBraemar; a big gamekeeper fast 
 sinking from a gunshot wound in the lower part of the thigh. 
 
 DR. ADAMS, loquitur. "Get a handkerchief, and the spurtle" 
 (the porridge stick), "and now for a pad for our tourniquet. This 
 will do," putting his little Elzevir Horace down upon the femoral. 
 Gamekeeper's life saved, and, by good guidance, the leg too.
 
 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHORY. 
 
 E little thought when, a few weeks ago, we in- 
 troduced some suggestions from Dr. Adams 
 as to the propriety of instituting in our uni- 
 versities a chair of medical history, by calling him the 
 most learned of Scottish physicians, that we should soon 
 have to change " is " into was. 
 
 When we last saw him, though he looked older than 
 his years, and weather-worn, he was full of vigor and of 
 heart, and seemed to have in him many days of victo- 
 rious study. 
 
 To see so much energy and understanding cut sheer 
 through in its full current, not dwindling away by nat- 
 ural waste, is little less startling than it would be to see 
 his own silver and impetuous Dee, one moment rolling 
 in ample volume, and the next vanished. For, common 
 though it be, there is nothing more strange, nothing, in 
 a certain true sense, more against nature, than the sud- 
 den extinguishment of so much intellect, knowledge, and 
 force. 
 
 Dr. Adams was not a mere scholar, not merely pa- 
 tient, ingenious, and perspicacious in the study of lan- 
 guage. His was likewise a robust, hardy, eager nature, 
 hungering after knowledge of every sort, and, in the 
 structure of his mind and its bent, more like the Scali- 
 gers and Bentleys of old than the mighty but mere 
 word-mongers among the Germans. He was made of
 
 254 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHORY. 
 
 the same tough and fervid material as were George Bu- 
 chanan and Florence Wilson, Andrew Melville, and 
 the huge, -turbulent, 1 and intrepid Dempster, men who 
 were great scholars, and a great deal more; shrewd, 
 and full of public spirit; men of affairs as well as of 
 letters. 
 
 It is this intermixture of shrewdness and fervor with 
 hard-headeduess and patient endurance of mental toil, so 
 peculiarly Scotch in its quality and in its flavor, which 
 makes a man like the country surgeon of Banchory- 
 Ternan worthy of more than a passing notice. 
 
 Francis Adams was born in the parish of Lumphanan, 
 on Deeside. His father was a gardener, and his elder 
 brother is still a farmer in that parish. 
 
 In a memorandum of his literary life now before us, he 
 says : "As far as I can think, my classical bent was 
 owing to a friendship which I formed, when about fifteen 
 years old, with a young man a few years older than my- 
 self, who had enjoyed the benefits of an excellent edu- 
 cation at Montrose, which gave him a superiority over 
 myself that roused me to emulation. 
 
 " In my early years I had been shamefully mistaught. 
 I began by devoting seventeen hours a day to the study 
 of Virgil and Horace, and it will be readily believed 
 that such intense application soon made up for any early 
 deficiencies. 
 
 " I read each of these six or seven times in succession. 
 
 1 Here is this formidable worthy's portrait, by Matthaeus Peregrinus, 
 as quoted by Dr. Irving in his Literary Scotchmen of the Last Four 
 Centuries: "Moribus ferox fuit, apertus omniuo, et simulandi nes- 
 cius, sive enim amore, sive odio aliquein prosequeretur utrumque pa- 
 lam; consuetudine jucundissimus, amicis obsequentissimus, ita inimicij 
 maxime infensus, acceptaeque injurise tenax, earn aperte agiioscens et 
 repetens."
 
 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHOBY. 255 
 
 Having mastered the difficulties of Latin literature, I 
 naturally turned my attention to Greek, as being the 
 prototype of the other. 
 
 " It was the late Dr. Kerr, of Aberdeen, who drew 
 my attention to the Greek literature of medicine, and at 
 his death I purchased a pretty fair collection of the 
 Greek medical authors which . he had made. However, 
 I have also read almost every Greek work which has 
 come down to us from antiquity, with the exception of 
 the ecclesiastical writers ; all the poets, historians, phi- 
 losophers, orators, writers of science, novelists, and so 
 forth. My ambition always was to combine extensive 
 knowledge of my profession with extensive erudition." 
 
 This was no ordinary boy of fifteen who could, ex 
 propria motu, work seventeen hours a day to make up 
 to his friend. 
 
 He settled early in life in the beautiful and secluded 
 village of Bauchory-Ternan, to use his own words, 
 "with its glassy river and magnificent hills rising in 
 front and behind like another Tempe, with its Peueus 
 flowing between Ossa and Olympus." Here he spent 
 his days in the arduous and useful profession of a coun- 
 try surgeon, out in all weathers and at all hours, having 
 the lives, the births, and the deaths of a wild outlying 
 region on his hands. This work he did so thoroughly 
 that no one could, with a shadow of justice, say that his 
 learning lessened his readiness and his ability for the 
 active duties of his calling, in the full round of its re- 
 quirements. He was an attentive, resolute, wise practi- 
 tioner, just such a man as we would like to fall into the 
 hands of, were we needing his help. He was always up 
 to the newest knowledge of the time, but never a slave 
 to any system, or addicted to swear by any master. The
 
 256 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHORY.- 
 
 whole cast of his mind was thoroughly free and seli- 
 sustained. If he had any idols, they were among the 
 mighty and the dead ; but even they were his compan- 
 ions and familiar daimons, rather than his gods. The 
 following is a list of Dr. Adams's principal publications, 
 and if we consider that, during all this time, he was 
 fighting for a livelihood, educating his family, and in- 
 volved in his multifarious and urgent duties, they fur- 
 nish one of the most signal instances of the pursuit 
 and mastery of knowledge under difficulties to be found 
 even among our Scottish worthies : 
 
 1. Translation of Hero and Leander, from the Greek 
 of Musaeus, with other Poems, English and Latin. Aber- 
 deen, 1826. 
 
 2. Hermes Philologus, or the Connection of the Greek 
 and Latin. London, 1826. This made him many liter- 
 ary friends, among others, Edmund H. Barker, author 
 of Dr. Parr's Life, and Dr. Anthon of New York. 
 
 3. Various Papers of Greek Prosody, etc., in the 
 Classical Journal. 
 
 4. On the Administration of Hellebore among the 
 Ancients. 
 
 5. On the Nervous System of Galen and other An- 
 cient Authors, 1829, in which the originality of Sir 
 Charles Bell's doctrines was attacked. 
 
 6. On the Toxicological Doctrines of the Ancients. 
 
 7. On the Treatment of Malignant Ulcers of the Face. 
 
 8. Notices of Greek, Latin, and Arabic Medical 
 Authors. For Barker's Edition of Lempriere. 
 
 9. Paulus ^Egineta. Translation of the first volume, 
 1834. This was a losing concern as to money ; but it 
 placed him, per saltum, in the first rank of learned and 
 judicious physicians ; it was an amazing tour de force
 
 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHORY. 257 
 
 for an Aberdeen surgeon, and will ever remain a memo- 
 rial of bis indomitable mental pluck and strong sense. 
 The Sydenham Society gave its character as follows : 
 " Replete with learning, and comprising the most com- 
 plete view which has ever been given of the knowledge 
 professed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians, it will 
 form a lasting monument of the industry and erudition 
 of its author, and an honor to his country." 
 
 10. Several Reviews in Forbes's British and Foreign 
 Review, 1842-66. 
 
 11. Case of Dislocation of the Knee-joint, with Dis- 
 section. 
 
 12. English and Greek Dictionary (Dunbar's), almost 
 entirely done by him. The appendix, containing scien- 
 tific explanation of the Greek names of minerals, plants, 
 and animals, is out of sight the most valuable existing in 
 any language. 
 
 13. Paulus ^Egineta, translated from the Greek. 3 
 vols., 1845-6-7. Sydenham Society. 
 
 14. A Series of Papers on Uterine Haemorrhage. 
 
 15. Case of a Woman bitten by an Adder. 
 
 16. A Series of Papers on the Construction of the 
 Placenta. 
 
 17. On the Treatment of Burns. 
 
 18. Hippocrates, translated from the Original. 2 vols., 
 1849. Sydenham Society. 
 
 19. Theophilus de Fabrica. Assisted by Dr. Green- 
 hill. Oxon. 1842. 
 
 20. Arundines Devae: a Collection of Original Po- 
 ems. 
 
 Since that time there have been frequent communica- 
 tions by him to the journals on medical subjects, and a 
 17
 
 258 DR. ADAMS OF BANCHORY. 
 
 pleasant paper on the study of ornithology, read before 
 the British Association at Aberdeen. 
 
 Nothing can better illustrate his keen appetite for 
 knowledge of all sorts than this curious and touching 
 record of his own observations on the birds of Banchory, 
 and his son's on those of Cashmere. You see what a 
 quick and loving eye the father had kept, during his 
 busy and learned life, upon the natural objects he met 
 with in his rides, and the training he had given his son 
 in such studies at home, which enabled him to turn his 
 Indian observations to good account. This modest but 
 remarkable paper contains not only the ornithological 
 notes, but an admirable pleading for this department of 
 natural history as a branch of liberal education, and a 
 valuable gymnastic for the senses and the mind, and 
 ends with an eloquent, and we think well-founded pro- 
 test, against the scientific ultraism of the day, the useful 
 information, and cramming mania. We wish we had 
 space to give some- of his words of admonition and 
 warning. The following are Dr. Adams's remarks, in 
 the memorandum already referred to, on his two great 
 works : 
 
 " I began the translation of ^Egineta in the end of 
 Nov. 1827, and finished it on 28th April 1829. I never, 
 at any period of my life, underwent so much drudgery ; 
 and during three months I sat up late and rose early, 
 and snatched every minute I could from the duties of 
 my profession. At that time my practice, though not 
 lucrative, was extensive, especially in the obstetric line ; 
 I managed, however, to work at my translation ten 
 hours a day. I finished the translation of Hippocrates 
 in about four months. The certainty of attaining a fair 
 remuneration for the trouble it cost me, and that it
 
 DR. ADAMS OP BANCHORY. 259 
 
 would not be a light hid under a bushel, made this by 
 far the most delightful task I ever engaged in. The re- 
 ception of it was everything I could desire. It cost me 
 some professional sacrifices, but this was amply made up 
 by the delight and mental improvement it conferred 
 on me." 
 
 Such is a hasty and imperfect sketch of the character 
 and works of the remarkable man, who well deserved 
 the title of doctissimus medicorum Britannorum. 
 
 Some years ago, when travelling through that noble 
 and beautiful region, we went across from the inn at 
 Banchory to introduce ourselves to the translator of the 
 divine old man of Cos. We found him at breakfast, 
 ready for his ride up the Feugh, and amusing himself 
 with pencilling down a translation of an ode of Horace 
 into Greek verse ! 
 
 He was a thorough Aberdonian, hard-headed and 
 warm-hearted, canny and yet independent, a man of 
 thought and action, not less than a man of vocables 
 and learning ; in politics an old and thorough Liberal ; 
 generous in his praise of others, and not unamusingly 
 fond of their praise of himself. By the sheer force of 
 his intellect, by the extent and exactness of his erudi- 
 tion, he became the cherished friend of such men as Sir 
 John Forbes, Dean Milman, Sir W. Hamilton, and 
 many of the famous Continental scholars ; and he leaves 
 in his own profession no equal in the combination of 
 honest, deep, and broad learning, with practical sagacity 
 and enlightened experience.
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 Venus cogitatur Deus quam didtur, et verius est quam cogitatur. 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 In these two things, viz., an equal indifferency for all truth 1 
 mean the receiving it in the love of it as truth, but not loving it for any 
 other reason before we know it to be true ; and in the examination of 
 our principles, and not receiving any for such, nor building on them, 
 until we are fully convinced, as rational creatures, of their solidity, 
 truth, and certainty consists that freedom of the understanding 
 which is necessary to a rational creature, and without which it is not 
 truly an understanding. JOHN LOCKE.
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 E have named the excellent works at the close 
 of this paper more with a view of recommend- 
 ing them to the study of such of our readers as 
 may be so inclined, than of reviewing them in the tech- 
 nical sense, still less of going over exactly the same 
 ground which they have already so well occupied and 
 enriched. Our object in selecting their names out of 
 many others is, that they are good and varied, both as to 
 time, and view, and character, and also that we may 
 be saved referring to them more particularly. 
 
 Our observations shall be of a very miscellaneous and 
 occasional kind perhaps too much so for the taste or 
 judgment of our readers ; but we think that a rambling 
 excursion is a good and wholesome thing now and then. 
 
 System is good, but it is apt to enslave and confine its 
 maker. Method in art is what system is in science ; and 
 we physicians know, to our sad and weighty experience, 
 that we are more occupied with doing some one thing, 
 than in knowing many other things. System is to an 
 art what an external skeleton is to a crab, something 
 it, as well as the crab, must escape from if it mean to 
 grow bigger : more of a shield and covering than a sup- 
 port and instrument of power. Our skeletons are inside 
 our bodies ; and so generally ought our systems to be 
 inside, not outside, our minds. 
 
 Were we, for our own and our readers' satisfaction
 
 264 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 and entertainment, or for some higher and better end, 
 about to go through a course of reading on the founda- 
 tion of general morals, in order to deduce from them a 
 code of professional ethics ; to set ourselves to discover 
 the root, and ascend up from it to the timber, the leaves, 
 the fruit, and the flowers, we would not confine ourselves 
 to a stinted browsing in the ample and ancient field : we 
 would, in right of our construction, be omnivorous, 
 trusting to a stout mastication, a strong digestion, an ec- 
 lectic and vigorous chylopoietic staff of appropriators 
 and scavengers, to our making something of everything. 
 We would not despise good old Plutarch's morals, or 
 anybody else's, because we know chemistry and many 
 other things better than he did; nor would we be 
 ashamed to confess that our best morality, and our 
 deepest philosophy of the nature and origin of human 
 duty, of moral good and evil, was summed up in the 
 golden rules of childhood, " Love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self ; " " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
 you, do ye even so to them ; " " Every man is thy 
 neighbor ; " " Love is the fulfilling of the law ; " " Ye 
 owe no man anything but to love one another." This 
 is the true birthplace of the word ought, that which 
 we owe to some one, and of duty, that which is due by 
 us ; and likewise of moral, that which should be cus- 
 tomary, and ethical, in the same sense ; the only cus- 
 tom which it will always be a privilege, as well as a 
 duty, to pay the only debt which must always be run- 
 ning up. 
 
 It is worth remembering that names too often become 
 the ghosts of things, and ghosts with a devil or a fool, 
 instead of the original tenant inside. The word manners 
 means literally nothing else, and ought never to be any.
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 265 
 
 thing else than the expression, the embodiment, the 
 pleasant flower, of an inward mos, or moral state. We 
 may all remember that the Contes Moraux, of Mar- 
 montel, which were, many of them, anything but moral, 
 were translated so, instead of Tales illustrative of Man- 
 ners. 
 
 To go on with our excursus erraticus. 
 
 Were we going to take ourselves and our company 
 into the past, and visit the habitats of the great moral- 
 ists, and see the country, and make up our minds as to 
 what in it was what, and how much to us it was worth, 
 we would not keep to one line ; we would expatiate a 
 little, and make it a ramble, not a journey, much less an 
 express train with no stoppages. We would, moreover, 
 take our own time, choose our own roads and our own 
 vehicles ; we would stay where and as long as we found 
 entertainment, good lodging, and good fare, and did not 
 lose our time or ourselves : and we would come home, 
 we hope, not informed merely, but in better health and 
 spirits, more contented, more active, more enlightened, 
 more readv for our dailv work. We would be<nn at the 
 
 / O 
 
 beginning, and start early. In search of what is man's 
 normal sense of duty, and how he is to do it, we would 
 take our company to that garden planted eastward in 
 Eden, where were all manner of fruits, pleasant to the 
 eye and good for food ; that garden which every one 
 believes in we don't mean geographically or geolog- 
 ically, but really as a fact in the history of the race, 
 and relics of which its sounds, its fragrance, and 
 beauty he meets still everywhere, within him and 
 around him, u like the remembrance of things to come," 
 we would there find the law, the primal condition un- 
 der which the species were placed by its Maker ; how
 
 266 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 the infinite and the finite, God and his children, giving 
 and receiving faith and works, met together and kept in 
 tune: how and by whom man was made upright, iu mind 
 as well as body ; and what was that first of the many 
 inventions he found out, when he took of the tree of 
 the knowledge of good as well as of evil, and did eat. 
 
 Then we would move on to a wild mountain in Ara- 
 oia, standing at this day as it did on that, and joining 
 the multitude of that peculiar people, whom we still see 
 in the midst of us in our busy world, unchanged, the 
 breed still unmixed, and out of the bickering flame, the 
 darkness, and the splendor, and, " as it were the very 
 body of heaven in its clearness," the sight so exceed- 
 ingly terrible, we might hear those ten commandments 
 which all of us have by heart, not all iu our hearts. 
 Lest we should fail with fear, we would go on into the 
 sunlight of Canaan, and forward many centuries, and in 
 the "Sermon on the Mount," sitting down among the 
 multitudes, hear our code of laws revised and re-issued 
 by their Giver, and find its summary easily carried away, 
 love to God, love to man, loving our neighbor as our- 
 selves. 
 
 Then might we go back and visit the Shepherd King, 
 and carry off his 104th, 105th, and 119th Psalms, and 
 being there we would take a lesson in morals from his 
 son's life, that wisest and foolishest of men, and 
 carry off with us his pithy " Proverbs." 
 
 Next we would intercept Paul's letter to his friends 
 at Rome, and make an extract of its 1st chapter, and 
 its 12th and 13th, and end by copying it all ; and having 
 called on James the Less and the Just, we would get his 
 entire epistle by heart, and shut up this, our visit to the 
 Holy Land, with the sound of the last verse of the
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 267 
 
 jecond last chapter of the Apocalypse ringing in our 
 ears. 
 
 "We would then find Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, 
 and all those noble old fellows, busy at their work, show- 
 ing us how little and how much man, with the finest or- 
 ganization, and the best discipline, can do for himself in 
 the way of lifting himself from the ground, and erecting 
 himself above himself, by his sheer strength; and we 
 would not fail to admire the courage, and the deep moral 
 intensity and desire, the amazing beauty and energy of 
 expression, the amplitude and depth of their ideas, as if 
 minds were once giant as well as bodies. But we would 
 not tarry with them, we would wish rather to take them 
 with us, and get Socrates to study the Sermon on the 
 Mount, and Plato the Pauline Epistles, where he would 
 meet his fellow, and more than his match, in subtlety 
 and in sense, in solid living thought, in clear and pas- 
 sionate utterance, in everything that makes thought felt, 
 and feeling understood, and both motive and effectual. 
 
 Then would we hurry over the dreary interval of the 
 middle passage of the dark ages, where Aristotle's blind 
 children of the mist might be seen spinning ropes, not 
 out of themselves, like the more intelligent and practical 
 spider, but out of the weary sand ropes, signifying 
 nothing; and we might see how, having parted with 
 their senses, they had lost themselves, and were vox et 
 prcetcrea nihil. 
 
 But we must shorten our trip. We would cool our- 
 selves, and visit old Hobbes of Malmesbury in his arctic 
 cave, and see him sitting like a polar bear, muttering 
 protests against the universe, nursing his wrath as the 
 only thing with which to warm and cheer that sulleu 
 heart, and proclaiming that self-love is every kind of
 
 268 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 love, and all that in man is good. We would wonder at 
 that palace of ice, symmetrical, beautiful, strong but 
 below zero. We would come away before we were be- 
 numbed, admiring much his intrepid air, his keen and 
 clean teeth, his clear eye, his matchless vigor of grip, 
 his redeeming love for his cubs, his dreary mistake of 
 absolute cold for heat, frozen mercury burning as well 
 as molten gold. Leaving him, after trying to get him 
 to give up his cold fishy diet, his long winters of splen- 
 did darkness, and come and live with us like a Christian, 
 we would go to an English country-house, to Lady 
 Masham's, at the Gates, the abode of comfort, cheerful- 
 ness, and thoughtful virtue ; and we would there find 
 John Locke, " communing with the man within the 
 breast," and listening reverently, but like a man ; and 
 we would carry off from her ladyship's table her father's 
 (Cudworth) huge magazine of learning, strong intellect, 
 and lofty morality his treatise " Concerning Eternal 
 and Immutable Morality." Then we might call for 
 Locke's pupil, Lord Shaftesbury, the great man and the 
 courtier, but the philosopher, too, having glimpses of 
 better things, and coming very close to what we are in 
 search of a special moral faculty ; and we would find 
 our friend Dr. Henry More in his laboratory, dreaming 
 in his odd Platonic way, of a " boniform faculty." 
 
 Next, we would set sail across the Atlantic, and reach 
 in the evening the mild skies of the " vex't Bermoothes," 
 and there find the beautiful-souled Berkeley dreaming 
 of ideal universities in the far west of a new world, 
 peopled with myriads as happy, as intelligent, as virtu- 
 ous as himself; dreaming, too, of his pancratic " Tar 
 Water," and in " Siris " ascending from his innocent 
 nostrum, by a Jacob's ladder of easy grade, to Plato's
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 269 
 
 heaven. And being in the neighborhood, we might as 
 well visit New England, and among its hedgerows and 
 elms, and quiet old villages, forget we are in New 
 Hampshire not in old and see in his study a coun- 
 try clergyman, with a thoughtful, contented look, and 
 an eye rich with a grave enthusiasm Jonathan Ed- 
 wards " whose power of subtle argument, perhaps un- 
 matched, certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined 
 with a personal character which raised his piety to 
 fervor." We might watch him with his back to the 
 wall of his room, his right heel turning diligently in a 
 hole of its own making in the floor, and the whole man 
 absorbed in thought; 1 and we would bring off what he 
 thought of the " Nature of True Virtue, and God's chief 
 end in the Creation ; " and we would find that, by a 
 mental process as steady as that of the heel by his 
 intrepid excogitation, his downright simplicity of pur- 
 pose, and the keen temper of his instrument, he had, to 
 borrow an exquisite illustration, pierced through the 
 subsoil the gravel, the clay, and rocks down to the 
 fresh depths of our common nature, and brought up, as 
 from an Artesian well, his rich reward and ours, in the 
 full flow of the waters of virtue not raised, per saltum, 
 by pump or high pressure, but flowing, pleno-rivo, by a 
 force from within. 
 
 On our return, we might fall in with an ardent, but 
 sensible Irishman, 2 teaching moral philosophy at Glas- 
 gow, and hitting, by a sort of felicity, on what had been 
 before so often missed, and satisfying mankind, at least, 
 
 1 Some years ago, an intelligent New England physician told us that 
 l his was the great metaphysician's nabit and attitude of study, and 
 that he had often seen the hole, which the molar heel made during 
 years of meditation. 
 
 2 Hutcheson.
 
 270 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 with the name of a moral sense as distinct as our 
 sense of bitter and sweet, soft and hard, light and dark- 
 ness. Then might we take a turn in his garden with 
 Bishop Butler, and hear his wise and weighty, his simple 
 and measured words : " Nations, like men, go at times 
 .deranged." " Everything is what it is, and not another 
 thing." " Goodness is a fixed, steady, unmovable prin- 
 ciple of action." " Reason, with self-love and conscience, 
 are the chief or superior principles in the nature of man ; 
 and they, if we understand our true happiness, always 
 lead us the same way." " Duty and interest are per- 
 fectly coincident, for the most part, in this world ; and 
 in every instance, if we take in the future and the 
 whole." We would carry off all his sermons, and indeed 
 everything he had written, and distribute his sermons on 
 The Love of God, on Self-Deceit, The Love of our Neigh- 
 bor, and The Ignorance of Man, all along our road, to 
 small and great. 
 
 We would look in on the author of the History of the 
 Ethical Sciences, on his return, perhaps tired and dis- 
 pirited, from a speech on the principles of natural and 
 immutable law, in " the House," when all had been 
 asleep but himself and the reporters ; and we would 
 listen for hours to his unfolding the meanings which 
 others, and which he himself, attached to that small 
 word ought ; and hear him call it " this most impor- 
 tant of words : " and we would come away charmed with 
 the mild wisdom of his thoughts, and the sweet richness 
 of his words. 
 
 We would merely leave our cards at Jeremy Ben- 
 tham's, that despiser of humbug in others, and uncon- 
 scious example of it in himself, and we would bring off 
 his Deontological Faculty. Neither would we care to
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 271 
 
 stay long with that hard-headed, uncomfortable old man 
 of Kccnigsberg, losing himself, from excess of strict- 
 ness, in the midst of his metaphysics ; and we would 
 with pity and wonder hear him announce that dreadful 
 " categorical imperative " of his, which has been said, 
 with equal wit and truth, to be, " at its best, but a dark 
 lantern, till it borrows a utilitarian farthing candle 
 i flaming sword that turns every way but drives no 
 whither " proclaiming a paradise lost, but in no wise 
 pointing the way to a paradise to be regained. 
 
 And before settling at home, we would look in and 
 pay our respects in our own town, to a beneficent, be- 
 nevolent, enlightened, and upright man, 1 with whom we 
 could agree to differ in some things, and rejoice to agree 
 in many ; and we would bring away from him all that he 
 could tell us of that " conscientiousness " the bodily 
 organ of the inward sense of personal right and wrong, 
 upon the just direction of which no one knows better 
 than he does depend the true safety, and dignity, and 
 happiness of man. 
 
 But after all our travel, we would be little the better 
 or the wiser, if we ourselves did not inwardly digest and 
 appropriate, as "upon soul and conscience," all our 
 knowledge. We would much better not have left home. 
 For it is true, that not the light from heaven, not the 
 riches from the earth, not the secrets of nature, not the 
 minds of men, or of ourselves, can do us anything but 
 evil, if our senses, our inward and outward senses, are 
 not kept constantly exercised, so as to discern for our- 
 selves what is good and evil in us and for us. We must 
 carry the lights of our own consciousness and conscience 
 into all our researches, or we will, in all likelihood, 
 lose our pains. 
 
 1 George Combe.
 
 272 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 As we have been, however, on our travels, qua medici, 
 as well as general tourists, we shall give the names of 
 some our best medical moralists : The Oath and Law 
 of Hippocrates, and above all, his personal character, 
 and the whole spirit of his writings and practice Stahl 
 Sydenham's warning and advice to those who pur- 
 pose giving themselves to the work of medicine the 
 four things he would have them to weigh well, the 
 two admirable academic sermons of Gaubius, De Regi- 
 mine Mentis quod Medicorum est Gregory on the Dit- 
 ties of a Physician Dr. Denman's Life, by his son, 
 the Lord Chief- Justice, and Dr. Gooch's not Dr. 
 Hope's, for reasons we might, but do not, give Dr. 
 Baillie's character, personal and professional Dr. Ab- 
 ercrombie's, and the books we have put at the end of 
 this paper. 
 
 Dr. Percival's Ethics is a classical book, in its best 
 sense ; sensible, sound, temperate, clear thoughts, con- 
 veyed in natural, clear, persuasive language. Its title is 
 somewhat of a blunder, at first it was Medical Jurispru- 
 dence and Ethics means at once more and less than 
 what it is made by him to represent. The Duties of a 
 Physician would have been less pedantic, and more cor- 
 rect and homely. There is a good deal of the stiffness 
 of the old school about the doctor ; he speaks in knee- 
 breeches and buckles, with a powdered wig, and an in- 
 terminable silk waistcoat, a gold-headed cane at his side, 
 and his cocked hat under his arm. To us, however, this 
 .is a great charm of the book, and of such books. There 
 may be stiffness and some Johnsonian swell about them ; 
 some words bigger than the thoughts, like a boy in his 
 father's coat ; some sentences in which the meaning ends
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 273 
 
 sooner than its voice, and the rummel resounds after 
 having parted company with the gumption ; but with all 
 this, there is a temperance, and soundness, and dignity 
 of view a good breeding and good feeling, a reticence 
 and composure, which, in this somewhat vaporing, tur- 
 bulent, unmannerly age of ours, is a refreshing pleas- 
 ure, though too often one of memory. 
 
 We are truly glad to see, from a modest note by Dr. 
 Greenhill, the editor, that he is engaged on a work on 
 medical morals. He will do it well and wisely, we have 
 no doubt. The profession is deeply indebted to him for 
 his edition of Sydenham the best monument the So- 
 ciety called by his name could raise to that great man ; 
 and also for his Life of Hippocrates, in Smith's Diction- 
 ary, besides other contributions to medical philosophy 
 and biography. 
 
 We have placed Fuller's Holy and Profane State on 
 our list, specially on account of its chapters on " The 
 Good Physician," " The Life of Paracelsus," the " True 
 Gentleman," and the " Degenerous," and likewise that 
 we might tempt our readers to enjoy the whole of this 
 delightful little book, and as much else of its author as 
 they can get hold of. They will thank us for this, if 
 they do not already know him, and they will excuse 
 us, if they do. Dr. Fuller is a man who, like Dr. South 
 and Sydney Smith, is so intensely witty, that we forget, 
 or do not notice, that he is not less eminently wise ; and 
 that his wit is the laughing blossom of wisdom. Here 
 are some of his sententiolce vibrantes : " The Good Phy- 
 sician hansels not his new experiments on the bodies of 
 his patients, letting loose mad recipes into the sick man's 
 body, to try how they and nature will fight it out, while 
 he stands by and enjoys the battle, except in desperate 
 18
 
 274 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 cases, when death must be expelled by death. Lest his 
 apothecary should oversee, he oversees his apothecary. 
 He trusteth not the single witness of the water, if bet- 
 ter testimony may be had. For reasons drawn from the 
 urine alone are as brittle as the urinal. He brings not 
 news, with a false spy, that the coast is clear, till death 
 surprises the sick man. I know physicians love to make 
 the best of their patient's estate : first, say they, it is 
 improper that adjutores vita should be nuncii mortis ; 
 secondly, none with their goodwill will tell bad news ; 
 thirdly, their fee may be the worse for it ; fourthly, it is 
 confessing their art beaten ; fifthly, it will poison their 
 patient's heart with grief. So far well ; but they may so 
 order it, that the party may be informed wisely, and not 
 outed of this world before he is provided for another." 
 
 We give the last sentence of his Life of Paracelsus 
 (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast, 
 ab Hohenheim), that renowned and ill-understood med- 
 ley of evil and good, darkness and light, quackery and 
 skill : "In a word, he boasted of more than he could 
 do ; did more cures seemingly than really, more cures 
 really than lawfully ; of more parts than learning, of 
 more fame than parts ; a better physician than a man, a 
 better chirurgeon than physician." 
 
 Here are the chief points of the " degenerous gentle- 
 man ; " they are like mottoes to the chapters on the physi- 
 ology of the noble rake in all ages : " He goes to school 
 to learn in jest, and play in earnest. His brother's serv- 
 ing-men, which he counts no mean preferment, admit 
 him into their society ; coming to the university, his 
 study is to study nothing ; at the inns of court, pretend- 
 ing to learn law, he learns to be lawless, and grows ac- 
 quainted with the ' roaring boys.' Through the media
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 275 
 
 tion of a scrivener, he is introduced to some great 
 usurer," etc., etc. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, though full of 
 true morality, of subtle and profound thought, and 
 most pathetic touches, as well as of his own peculiar, 
 grave, antique humor, and quaint expression as odd 
 often as the root of an orchis, and, in its expression, as 
 richly emblazoned with colors, as whimsically gibbous as 
 its flower has less to do with our immediate subject 
 than his Christian Morals, which are well worth the 
 perusing. Here is a sample : " Live up to the dignity 
 of thy nature ; pursue virtue virtuously : desert not thy 
 title to a Divine particle have a glimpse of incompre- 
 hensibles, and thoughts of things that thoughts but ten- 
 derly touch. Lodge immaterials in thy head, ascend 
 until invisibles fill thy spirit with spirituals, with the 
 mysteries of faith, the mugnalities of religion, and thy 
 life with the honor of God." 
 
 This is good wholesome advice at any time, and not 
 the least so now, when sensible things are cross-question- 
 ing us more keenly and urgently than ever, when mat- 
 ter is disclosing fresh wonders, every day, and telling 
 her secrets in crowds ; and, when we are too apt to be 
 absorbed in her, to forget that there is something else 
 than this earth that there is more than meets the eye 
 and the ear that seeing is not believing, and that it is 
 pleasant, refreshing, and wholesome, after the hurry and 
 heat and din of the day, its flaring lights and its eager 
 work, to cool the eye and the mind, and rest them on 
 the silent and clear darkness of night " sowed with 
 itars thick as a field." Let us keep everything worth 
 keeping, and add, not substitute ; do not let us lose our- 
 \plves in seeking for our basic radical, or our primary
 
 276 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 cell ; let us remember that the analytic spirit of the age 
 may kill as well as instruct, may do harm as well as good ; 
 that while it quickens the pulse, strengthens the eye and 
 the arm, and adds cunning to the fingers, it may, if car- 
 ried to excess, confuse the vision, stupefy and madden the 
 brain ; and, instead of directing, derange and destroy. 
 
 We have no book in our language to compare with 
 Simon's Deontologie Medicale, for largeness of view and 
 earnestness and power of treatment; it is admirable in 
 substance and in form, and goes through the whole duty 
 of the physician with great intelligence, liveliness, and 
 tact. It has what all first-rate French writers have 
 the charm of definite ideas and definite expression, the 
 "maniere incisive" which we so much want. Had we 
 room, we would gladly have quoted his remarks on 
 style its nature and its value to the physician ; he 
 himself exemplifies what he teaches. 
 
 On this subject, we would direct attention likewise to 
 the able and clever article in the British and Foreign 
 Review. 1 We cannot help quoting Buffon's words ; they 
 illustrate themselves. They are from his Remarques 
 sur le Style: " Les ouvrages bien ecrits sont les seuls 
 
 1 On a very different, but by no means inconsiderable subject, we 
 quote this cordial and wise passage from the same article. Speaking of 
 the odium medicum, " The true remedy for professional jealousies is fre- 
 quent intercommunication, a good dinner at the Royal would heal the 
 professional feuds of a large town. The man of science, who thinks he 
 practises his profession for the sheer love of it, may smile at the sen- 
 sualness of the means, and it may not be the remedy he requires ; but 
 most practitioners are men of the metier, and like a dinner of the craft 
 as well as others. We wish there were a medical guild in every large 
 town, with an ample dinner fund good fellowship would increase 
 and abound, and with it unity of purpose, honor, public and persona." 
 esteem."
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 277 
 
 qui passeront a la poste'rite, la quantite des connais- 
 sances, la singularite des faits, la nouveaute meme des 
 de'couvertes, ne sont pas de surs garants de I'immortalite ; 
 si les ouvrages qui les contieiinent ne roulent que sur de 
 petits objets, s'ils sorit ecrits sans gout, noblesse, et sans 
 genie, ils periront parce que les connaissances, les faits, les 
 de'couvertes s'enlevent aisement, se transportent, gagnent 
 meme a etre mises en oeuvre par des mains plus habiles. 
 Les choses sont hors de I'homme, le style c'est Ihomme 
 meme" Apples of gold are best set in pictures of silver 
 great thoughts and natural thoughts should be great- 
 ly and naturally said : they are indeed neither, if not. 
 Lord Jeffrey said to a young friend of great genius, but 
 addicted to long and odd words, and to coining a word 
 now and then, " My friend, when you have a common 
 thing to say, say it in a common way, and when you 
 have an uncommon thing, it will find its own way of 
 saying itself." Let no one des"pise style. If thought is 
 the gold, style is the stamp which makes it current, and 
 says under what king it was issued. There is much in 
 what Buffon says Style is the man himself. Try to 
 put Horace or Tacitus, Milton, Addison, or Goldsmith, 
 Charles Lamb or Thackeray, into other words, and you 
 mar, and likely kill the thought they cease to be 
 themselves. 
 
 But how am I to get a good style ? Not by imitat- 
 ing or mimicking any one. Not by trying to think or to 
 write like any one, but to think and write with him. It 
 is with style as with manners and good-breeding. Keep 
 good company, and do your best, and you will write and 
 speak and act like a gentleman, because you think and 
 feel and live with gentlemen. If you would write like 
 ,ke ancient masters, read them and relish them be
 
 278 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 their son, not their ape. Our medical writers nowadays, 
 with a few signal exceptions, write ill. They are slov- 
 enly, diffuse, often obscure, and curiously involved. The 
 reasons are : jfirst, the enormous amount of merely pro- 
 fessional knowledge a man is expected to master before 
 he writes on any subject, and the absorbing nature of 
 the new methods ; secondly, and as a consequence, the 
 ignorance of general literature, and the much less asso- 
 ciation by men of medicine with men of letters, now 
 than in olden times. Arbuthnot was not the worse phy- 
 sician, and all the better writer, from his being the com- 
 panion of those famous wits whose good genius and 
 doctor he was ; and his Treatises on Airs and Aliments 
 are all the better of being the work of a man who took 
 his share in Martinus Scriblerus, and wrote the History 
 of John Bull. 
 
 Currie, 1 Aikin, Gregory, Heberden, Cullen, Ferriar, 
 Gooch, are all the more powerful, and all the more per- 
 manent as medical authorities, from their having learned, 
 by practice and by example, to write forcibly, clearly, 
 compactly, and with dignity and grace. 
 
 The turbid, careless style, constipated, or the reverse, 
 by which much of our medical literature is characterized, 
 is a disgrace to our age, and to the intelligence, good 
 taste, and good breeding of our profession, and mars in- 
 
 1 Do our young readers know Carrie's Life by his son ? if not let 
 them get it. They will see one of the noblest, purest intellects our 
 profession has ever had, ardently humane, grave, and energetic, tinged 
 with a secret, pensive melancholy, and they will find much of the best 
 knowledge and advice for their conduct in life. His letters to his son 
 when a student at Edinburgh College may be read alongside of Col- 
 lingwood's from his ship to his daughters, and his Jasper Wilson's Letter 
 M Mr. Pitt is one sustained burst of eloquent and earnest patriotism 
 f sound political philosophy, and strong sense ; it was flung off at 
 heat, and was his only appearance in public affairs.
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 279 
 
 conceivably the good that lies concealed and bungled 
 within it. No man has a right to speak without some 
 measure of preparation, orderliness, and selectness. As 
 Butler says, " Confusion and perplexity of writing is 
 indeed without excuse, because any one, if he pleases, 
 may know whether he understands and sees through 
 what he is about : and it is unpardonable for a man to 
 lay his thoughts before others, when he is conscious that 
 he himself does not know whereabouts he is, or how the 
 matter before him stands. It is coming abroad in dis- 
 order, which he ought to be ashamed to find himself in at 
 home." Whately, in reply to a youth who asked him 
 how to write clearly, answered, " Think clearly." This 
 is the secret. 
 
 We might, had space permitted, have gone more par- 
 ticularly into the higher moralities of physicians, and 
 into some of the more miscellaneous conditions which 
 interpenetrate morals, manners, and etiquette ; for eti- 
 quette, with all its littlenesses and niceties, is founded 
 upon a central idea of right and wrong ; and on the 
 Tightness or wrongness of that idea depends the true 
 significance and worth of the merest punctilio. 
 
 We might likewise have said some few things on the 
 public and professional religion of a doctor, and its rela- 
 tion to his personal ; and something, also, of that religi- 
 osity which, besides its ancient endemic force, as old as 
 our race, is at present dangerously epidemic a pseudo- 
 activity, which is not only not good, but virulently bad, 
 being at once as like and as opposite to the true as 
 hemlock is to parsley. 
 
 We are anxious to persuade our young friends, who, 
 having "passed ' and settled down, are waiting for 
 practice, not merely to lm>y themselves for the next
 
 280 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 
 
 seven or eight barren years in their own immediate cir- 
 cle we are sure they will not suspect us of wishing 
 them to keep from what is their highest duty and great- 
 est pleasure, but to persuade them, when they have 
 some leisure and long evenings, and few " cases," to read 
 the works of such men as Berkeley, Butler, Paley, Bax- 
 ter, Tucker, Barrow, Locke, Principal Campbell, Reid, 
 Dugald Stewart, Mackintosh, Whately, Alexander Knox, 
 etc. ; to keep up their classical knowledge, and go over 
 Horace's Art of Poetry, Cicero's Epistles and Philosoph- 
 ical Treatises, Seneca, Epictetus, Marc Autonine, Quin- 
 tilian, and such like not to mention a more sacred 
 book, which they ought to read all their lives, and use 
 every day, as the perfect rule of duty, the lamp to their 
 feet, the light to their eyes. 
 
 We may be thought to be making too much of these 
 things. It would be difficult to do so, when we consider 
 what we, as physicians, are supposed to possess prac- 
 tising, as we do, not merely one of the arts of life, mak- 
 ing an honorable living and enabling our fellow-men 
 to do the same but constantly watching at that awful 
 fanua vita et mortis, our main duty being to keep men 
 alive. Let us remember what is involved in the enjoy- 
 ment and in the loss of life that perilous and inesti- 
 mable something, which we all know how much we our- 
 selves prize, and for which, as we have the word, long 
 ago, of a personage * more distinguished for his talents 
 than his virtues, uttered in a Presence where even he 
 dared not tell a lie direct, that " all that a man hath he 
 will give," so let it be our endeavor, as its conservators, 
 to give all that we have, our knowledge, our affections, 
 our energies, our virtue (apenj, vir-tus, the very essence 
 i Job ii. 4.
 
 EXCURSUS ETHICUS. 281 
 
 or pith of a man), in doing our best to make our pa- 
 tients healthy, long-lived, and happy. 
 
 We conclude with two quotations, the first from the 
 mouth of one l of the best men of our profession one 
 of the greatest of public benefactors one of the truest 
 and most genial of friends and of whose merits we 
 would say more, were he not still, to our great comfort, 
 in the midst of us, for we agree with the ancients in 
 this, as in some other things, that it is not becoming to 
 sacrifice to our heroes till after sunset: " My religion 
 consists mainly of wonder and gratitude" This is the 
 religion of paradise and of childhood. It will not be 
 easy to find a better, even in our enlightened days ; only 
 it must be a rational wonder, a productive gratitude 
 the gratitude, that of a man who does not rest contented 
 with the emotion, but goes at once into the motive, and 
 that a motive which really moves and the wonder, 
 that of a man who, in reverencing God, knows him, and 
 in honoring all men, respects himself. 
 
 The next is the admonition we have already referred 
 to, by Sydenham. Our readers will find, at its close, 
 the oldest and best kind of homoeopathy a kind which 
 will survive disease and the doctors, and will never, as 
 may be said of the other, cure nothing but itself. 
 
 " He who gives himself to the study and work of med- 
 icine ought seriously to ponder these four things 1st, 
 That he must, one day, give an account to the Supreme 
 Judge of the lives of the sick committed to his care. 
 2c#y, That whatsoever of art, or of science, he has by 
 the Divine goodness attained, is to be directed mainly 
 to the glory of the Almighty, and the safety of mankind, 
 and that it is a dishonor to himself and them, to make 
 1 Dr. Henry Marshall, who died soon after this was written.
 
 282 EXCURSUS ETHICS. 
 
 these celestial gifts subservient to the vile lusts of avarice 
 and ambition. Moreover, 3dly, that he has undertaken 
 the charge of no mean or ignoble creature, and that in 
 order to his appreciating the true worth of the human 
 race, he should not forget that the only-begotten Son of 
 God became a man, and thus far ennobled, by his own 
 dignity, the nature he assumed. And, lastly, that as he is 
 himself not exempted from the common lot, and is liable 
 and exposed to the same laws of mortality, the same 
 miseries and pains, as are all the rest ; so he may en- 
 deavor the more diligently, and with a more tender 
 affection, as being himself a fellow-sufferer (o/xotoTra^Tj?), 
 to help them who are sick." 
 
 For to take a higher, the highest, example, we must 
 " be touched with a feeling of the infirmities " of our 
 patients, else all our skill and knowledge will go but 
 half-way to relieve or cure. 
 
 BOOKS REFERRED TO. 
 
 1. Percival's Medical Ethics ; new edition, with Notes, by Dr. 
 Greenhill. 2. Code of Medical Ethics ; by the American Medical As- 
 sociation. 3. Richard Baxter's Compassionate Counsel to Students 
 of Physic. 4. Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, and Christian 
 Morals. 5. Gaubius de Regimine Mentis quod Medicorum est. 
 6. Fuller's " Good Physician," and "Life of Paracelsus," in his 
 "Holy and Profane State." 7. Simon, De"ontologie Medicale, ou 
 des Devoirs et des Droits de Me'decins. 8. Gisborne, Gregory, and 
 Ware, on the Duties of a Physician. 9. Hufeland on the Relations 
 of the Physician to the Sick, to the Public, and to his Colleagues. 
 
 10. British and Foreign Medical Journal for April 1846, Art. ix. 
 
 11. Aikin's Letters to his Son on the Choice of a Profession and the 
 Conduct of Life.
 
 DR. JOHN SCOTT AND HIS SON. 
 
 MR. SYME. 
 SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON, BART.
 
 DR. JOHN SCOTT, 
 
 ;OMPANION of Mr. Syme and Dr. Sharpey, 
 and that crew, and friend of Dr. Combe and 
 Sir James Clark, was one of six (all dark 
 haired and eyed) sons of the great store-farmer of Sing- 
 lie in Ettrick, a man of the old Border breed, strenu- 
 ous, peremptory, full of fight, who, had he lived 300 
 years earlier, might have been a Jock o' the Side, a Dick 
 o' the Cow, or a Kinmont Willie. John studied medicine, 
 went to India, came home, studied again at Paris, and 
 was among the first to learn from Laennec the use of 
 the stethoscope, of which he became a master. He 
 married and settled in Edinburgh, and soon gathered a 
 large practice, as all the south country folk went to him 
 as to a wizard. He had no ambition, was very shy, 
 hated to take fees, read incessantly English, French, and 
 German, could bring out fish in the Gala when no one 
 else could, and had an< instinct for finding out disease 
 like that of a pointer for game. 
 
 His only son, WILLIAM HENRY, Willie, as we 
 called him, was a " marvellous boy," withered in all 
 the leaves of his spring. I never knew one more gifted, 
 or one more innocent and good. He had got the mini- 
 mum dose of the virus of original sin, and he gave it no 
 encouragement. I never knew a more sinless lad. He 
 read everything, remembered everything. He told me- 
 with perfect simplicity, he "didn't know how to forget.'
 
 286 DR. JOHN SCOTT. 
 
 I have often laid traps for him as to this, bat never 
 caught him. Of a trivial article in Chambers' 's Journal, 
 or anywhere else, he gave you right off the number and 
 the page. To please his father he went through victo- 
 riously all the medical classes, and took his degree, hav- 
 ing an inborn dislike to the study, while all the time he 
 was steadily pursuing his own great line gathering 
 his Bactrian, Parthian, and Sassauian coins drawing 
 wide inferences from them and all else. He died of con- 
 sumption, and had that vivid life and brightness as 
 his eyes showed which so often attend that sad mal- 
 ady, in which the body and soul, as if knowing their 
 time here was short burn as if in oxygen gas and 
 have "Hope the charmer" with them to the last 
 putting into these twenty years the energy, the enjoy- 
 ment, the mental capital and raptures of a long life. So 
 mature, so large, and so innerly was his knowledge, that 
 after his death, letters of sorrow came from the Conti- 
 nent, and elsewhere, indicating that he was considered 
 twice his real age. I cannot resist giving the following 
 tribute by Mr. George Sim, Curator of Coins to our So- 
 ciety of Antiquaries, and the unforgetting friend of this 
 indeed " marvellous boy," whose sun went down in its 
 " sweet hour of prime : " 
 
 " On 4th October 1855, died our much lamented friend, 
 William Henry Scott, M. D., aged twenty-four years, 
 and by his death Scotland lost perhaps her most brilliant 
 scholar. Although he has now been dead longer than 
 he lived, yet his memory is as fondly cherished as if he 
 had died but yesterday, and the results of his wonderful 
 researches are still attracting our admiration. 
 
 " It is difficult to imagine how it was possible in so 
 short a life to acquire so varied an amount of knowledge
 
 DR. JOHN SCOTT. 287 
 
 as Dr. Scott possessed, especially when we consider his 
 delicate constitution and toilsome course of education. 
 
 " From his earliest years his mind had been directed 
 to historical and philological research, which his wonder- 
 ful memory (for he could not forget) enabled him to 
 embody and utilize with accuracy when opportunity of- 
 fered. 
 
 " Having been a member of the Royal Asiatic Society 
 of France, and of other learned societies both at home 
 and abroad, he maintained an interesting and instructive 
 correspondence with savants of many countries, and con- 
 tributed to their periodicals in their own languages. He 
 had deciphered upwards of thirty languages with no 
 other aid than that derived from books, his purpose be- 
 ing to compare all the alphabets of ancient and modern 
 times, and as far as possible the languages, the remains 
 of numismatic art, and other records, with the general 
 history of the world, as deduced from a widely extended 
 course of inferential reasoning based on known facts; 
 and if Dr. Scott had been spared to carry out the course 
 he had shaped for himself, there can be no doubt (con- 
 sidering the splendid results of the researches with which 
 he had already enriched us) that he would have been 
 able to accomplish wonderful work. 
 
 " A wide field for students of archaeology had been 
 opened up in India, and in the more western parts of 
 Asia, and the observations of many great scholars 
 (whose names need not be here enumerated) had been 
 appreciated and highly prized, but few of them had any 
 numismatic knowledge, so that the results of their in 
 vestigations were not always satisfactory ; yet here it 
 was that the brilliant genius of Dr. Scott shone forth, 
 which, through his knowledge of so many dead languages
 
 288 DR. JwTIX ;COTT. 
 
 and numismatics, enabled him to take the lead, and to 
 withdraw the veil that enshrouded the prospect we had 
 so long and so ardently desired to explore. 
 
 " If Dr. Scott's papers and extensive correspondence 
 could have been collected, they would present a series 
 of discoveries, and sound and ingenious observations of 
 the highest importance. His contributions to the Nu- 
 mismatic Chronicle alone (which attracted much notice 
 at the time of their appearance) would form a goodly 
 volume. 
 
 " A school-fellow and early associate of Dr. Scott 
 (Dr. F. de Chaumont, now of Netley, then in India) 
 thus wrote on hearing of the death of his friend : 'It 
 is difficult as yet to realize fully the loss we have sus- 
 tained. He was such an excellent man, so good a friend, 
 and so wonderful a scholar. He was indeed one of those 
 early lights whose very intensity precludes their burning 
 long, and whom God has withdrawn to Himself, as a 
 guiding star of whom the world was scarce worthy.' "
 
 MR. SYME. 
 
 |i^|?ERHAPS I was too near Mr. Syme to see and 
 measure him accurately, but he remains in my 
 mind as one of the best and ablest and most 
 beneficent of men. He was my master my apprentice- 
 fee bought him his first carriage, a gig, and I got the 
 first ride in it and he was my friend. He was I be- 
 lieve the greatest surgeon Scotland ever produced; and 
 I cannot conceive of a greater, hardly of as great, a 
 clinical teacher. To be all this he must have had quali- 
 ties, native and acquired, fitting him for preeminence in 
 almost any sphere of power in thought or action. 
 
 His life, till he won his victory, when he was half 
 through it, was an almost continual combat with men and 
 things. Sensitive, strong-willed, shy, having a stammer, 
 bent upon reaching reality and the best in everything ; 
 he had to struggle with imperfect means, family disaster, 
 and inadequate power of expressing his mind. He was 
 full of genuine virtue and affection (the more the deeper 
 in). With singular keenness and exactness of the outer 
 and inner eye, he touched everything to the quick. He 
 was ever ready for a joke, but as a habit of mind was 
 serious and in earnest. Bent on getting knowledge at 
 first hand, he was therefore somewhat neglectful of 
 other men's knowledge, and especially if at third hand. 
 Full of a child's enjoyment of nature in her flowers and 
 
 19
 
 290 MR. SYME. 
 
 wilds, he had also all his days a passion for cultivating 
 and enjoying fruits and flowers. He was kindly to oddi- 
 ties of all sorts ; loving the best music, hating all other ; 
 little capable of poetry, but when capable it must be the 
 best ; not sentimental, rather sensible and sensitive, es- 
 pecially the first, but not without romance. He was the 
 discoverer of the solubility of caoutchouc in coal-tar, and 
 therefore entitled to an immense fortune had he patented 
 it. 1 He did not read much hard or heavy reading ; it 
 was diversion he sought rather than information. The 
 action of his mind was so intense during his hours of 
 work, that, like a race-horse, doing his day's work in 
 not many minutes, though putting his capital of life into 
 that supreme act, he needed and relished perfect diastole 
 relaxation ; and as Mr. Comrie of Penicuik said of 
 himself, " his constitution could stand a great deal of 
 ease," though ready at any moment for any emergency 
 and for the full play of his utmost. 
 
 I was the first to see him when struck down by hemi- 
 plegia. It was in Shandwick Place, where he had his 
 chambers sleeping and enjoying his evenings in his 
 beautiful Millbank, with its flowers, its matchless orchids, 
 and heaths, and azaleas, its bananas, and grapes, and 
 peaches ; with Blackford Hill where Marmion saw 
 the Scottish host mustering for Flodden in front, and 
 the Pentlands, with Cairketton Hill, their advanced 
 guard, cutting the sky, its ruddy, porphyry scaur, hold- 
 ing the slanting shadows in its bosom. He was, as be 
 fore said, in his room at Shandwick Place, sitting in his 
 chair, having been set up by his faithful Blackbell. His 
 
 1 He sent a letter to the Annals of Philosophy of March 1818 an- 
 nouncing this discovery. It appeared in August, and soon after Mr. 
 Macintosh took out the patent which made his name famous.
 
 MR. SYME. 291 
 
 face was distorted. He said "John, this is the con- 
 clusion," and so in much it was, to his, and our, and the 
 world's sad cost. He submitted to his fate with manly 
 fortitude, but he felt it to its uttermost. Struck down in 
 his prime, full of rich power, abler than ever to do good 
 to men ; his soul surviving his brain, and looking on at 
 its steady ruin during many sad months. 
 
 He became softer, gentler, more easily moved, even 
 to tears, but the judging power, the perspicacity, the 
 piercing to the core, remained untouched. Hencefor- 
 ward, of course, life was maimed. How he bore up 
 against this, resigning his delights of teaching, of doing 
 good to men, of seeing and cherishing his students, of 
 living in the front of the world ; how he accepted all 
 this, those only nearest him can know. I have never 
 seen anything more pathetic than when near his death 
 he lay speechless, but full of feeling and mind, and made 
 known in some inscrutable way to his old gardener and 
 friend that he wished to see a certain orchid, which he 
 knew should then be in flower. The big, clumsy, know- 
 ing Paterson, glum and victorious (he was forever get- 
 ting prizes at the Horticultural), brought it the Stan- 
 hopea tigrina in, without a word, it was the very 
 one. Radiant in beauty, white, with a brown freckle, 
 .^ike Imogen's mole, and like it, " right proud of that 
 most delicate lodging ; " he gazed at it, and, bursting 
 >nto a passion of tears, motioned it away as insufferable. 
 
 He had that quality of primary minds of attaching 
 permanently those he had relations to. His students 
 never ceased to love him and return to him from all 
 regions of the world. He was in this a solar man, and 
 had his planets pacing faithfully round him. 
 
 He was somewhat slow in adopting new things, ex-
 
 292 MB. SYME. 
 
 cept his own. He desired to prove all things, and then 
 he held fast that which was good. This was the case 
 with chloroform and the antiseptic doctrine, which the 
 world owes and what a debt ! to his great son-in- 
 law, Joseph Lister ; but new-fangledness per se he dis- 
 liked. He had beautiful hands, small and strong ; and 
 their work on skeletons of serpents in the College of 
 Surgeons is still unmatched. 
 
 He was all his life a Liberal in politics. His style 
 was the perfection of clearness and force, his master 
 having been William Cobbett. As a man, who himself 
 knows how to use language, said of him " he never 
 wastes a drop of blood or of ink." 
 
 Of what he was to me, his patience, his affection, 
 his trust, his wisdom, and still more, what he might 
 have been to me had I made the most of him, it is not for 
 me now to speak. He remains in my mind as one of the 
 strongest, clearest, capablest, most valuable understand- 
 ings ; one of the warmest, truest hearts, I have had 
 the privilege and the responsibility of knowing. Heu! 
 quanta minus est cum reliquis versari, quam lui memi- 
 nisse ! He had his faults, who has n't ? but they were 
 superficial, and therefore seen by all men. In his quar- 
 rels, and he was a man of war from his youth up till 
 late manhood, he was almost always right in the mat- 
 ter, sometimes wrong in the manner, and the world we 
 know often makes more of manner than of matter. 
 
 But the deeper you cut into him the richer, the 
 sweeter, the stronger the substance. He was irritable 
 at, and impatient of stupidity, and long-windedness and 
 pretence ; and at falsehood, quackery, and trickery of 
 all sorts, he went like a terrier at a rat. 
 
 I once went with him and Mrs. Syme to Lochore, his
 
 MR. SYME. 293 
 
 father's lost estate, and where he lived as a boy, and 
 had never again been for more than forty years, and 
 which he had some thought of purchasing back. We 
 drove up from Burntisland, and at Lochgelly he was 
 full of memories of the saintly Seceder minister, Mr. 
 Greig, and pointed out at Auchtertool the fatal meadow 
 now lying in the sun, where Stuart of Dunearn shot Sir 
 Alexander Boswell. As we came near Lochore his be- 
 came very silent and eager-eyed. 
 
 It was in decay, all things rude and waste. We went 
 into the old garden. He went off alone, and wondering 
 at his stay I sought him and found him leaning on an 
 old sundial. He was sobbing and in tears ! " No, no, 
 John, never again, never, this is not my Lochore." 
 
 Here is the kind of good he did. A well-known public 
 man, of strong will and perfect courage, told me that he 
 had been suffering from a local affection, which made 
 life unbearable. The day before he saw Mr. Syme he 
 had determined to end his misery and his life, and he 
 was a man to keep his word. 1 Mr. Syme saw him, per- 
 formed an operation of his own invention, and my friend 
 lived for many years in full health and activity. What 
 a thing to have done ! 
 
 Here is a humorous bit. There is a dreadful and 
 ludicrous disease of the nose, which some of my readers 
 may have had the misfortune to see. It is an enormous, 
 shapeless enlargement, which horrible thing is forever 
 in its possessor's eye, and, as I have seen, projects below 
 the mouth, and wags. A most excellent country clergy- 
 man, beloved by his people, had such a nose ; he was 
 
 l I knew a man who did end his misery for not so strong a cause ; 
 he had bad eczema ; he committed suicide, and left on his table his 
 --ail, with ''tired scratching" on it.
 
 29-4 MR. SYME. 
 
 more distressed for others than for himself, and he ap- 
 plied to Mr. Syme, who said he would give him back 
 his old nose, and that he had a chance few men had, of 
 choosing its style. Would he like the Grecian or the 
 Roman or the Cogitative ? " The Cogitative," said the 
 stout and gravely humorous Calvinist, and to work we 
 went. 
 
 Mr. Syme was one of the first to show how this horrid 
 growth should be dealt with, so he carefully pared off 
 all the wattle, Bardolphian stuff ; and our friend went 
 back to his faithful colliers his quarrymen and his 
 sailors and their wives, with a nose as good in color and 
 in shape as any of theirs ; indeed they were not quite 
 pleased at the new nose, for they said other people 
 would covet and "call" him. 
 
 Good ministers of the gospel, especially country ones, 
 he delighted in, and knew them at once from their op- 
 posites, as one knows parsley from hemlock. He once 
 went out to near Biggar to perform a serious operation 
 on a hind's wife. When he arrived at the cottage he 
 found " the minister " was there, my dear sunny-hearted 
 Uncle Smith. The gudeman said to Mr. Syme " Oo 
 wud like a bit prayer first." " By all means," said Mr. 
 Syme. It was short and strong, and asked the help and 
 blessing of the Eternal on the surgeon and on the pa- 
 tient. " And we were both the better of it," said the 
 surgeon, and this, not from a transcendental and debat- 
 able point of view, but from the simple effect on the 
 minds of both. 
 
 Everything on his own subject that he wrote is good. 
 His Principles of Surgery are really first things, and his 
 style, as I have said, was the perfection of terse clear- 
 ness. As his shyness wore off, and he felt his power
 
 MR. SYME. 295 
 
 and his mind became enriched, so his language blos- 
 somed out, and, as it were, enjoyed itself, but it was 
 always like his knife, to the point. 
 
 He was always well " put on," but never dressy. His 
 students will well remember his checked neckerchief of 
 bright Earlston gingham, uugetable now, the tie of which 
 I labored in vain for years to achieve. He was the most 
 'rapid dresser I ever knew. 
 
 ' He and his cousin and great rival Listen went out to 
 Dumfries to experiment with galvanism upon the body 
 of a murderer after being hung, and he said he could 
 never forget the look of the wretched man who had 
 hopes of being brought to life, as he strode along the 
 passage to his doom, having brea-kfasted copiously, and 
 smacking his lips as he went. The experiment failed ; 
 he did n't return. 
 
 The worst thing about him was his handwriting ; it 
 was worse than Lord Jeffrey's, or Dean Stanley's, or 
 old Edward Ellice's, and his friend Lord Dunfermline's, 
 and was only excelled, in badness, by the strong-hearted 
 and strong-brained old Whig, Thomas Kennedy of Dun- 
 ure, one of that small and intrepid band which emanci- 
 pated Scotland, when, in the words of his friend Lord 
 Cockburn, " We were concentrated by being crushed." 
 I should not speak, for I write a hand which my father 
 said had every fine quality except the being legible ; but 
 surely a moral obligation lies upon every man to write 
 as distinctly as he speaks and can. Thackery was a 
 model in this ; his writing is as clear and as clean as his 
 style ; and so was Scott's, though his hand ran rather 
 too fast to have time to dot his I's or stroke his i's. 
 
 Mr. Syme was what might be called a little man, but, 
 like Fox Maule, could never be felt as one. A homely
 
 296 MR. STME. 
 
 face, better above than below, a very full beautifully 
 modelled forehead, especially that line springing from 
 the outer eyebrow. I never saw in a man finer, 
 more expressive eyes dark gray. I have seen Jef- 
 frey's, Cockburn's, and Rutherfurd's, and Gladstone's, 
 Sir Wm. Hamilton's, and my father's eyes, but none of 
 them had so much meaning as his such crystalline 
 pureness; in old Wither's words, they were eyes that 
 " unto me did seem more comfortable than the day." 
 His mouth, where temper lies, was not so good as his 
 eyes, where knowledge and affection dwell and speak. 
 He was very well made, as more little men and dogs are 
 than big ; his feet were as tidy as his hands, and for a 
 short race his legs could beat his friend Christison's, who 
 might have won Atalanta without the apples. His voice 
 was not good, except when moved and confidential; he 
 hesitated and hardly did justice to his words though 
 in all this he greatly improved. I have heard him when 
 he began in Minto House (the scene of one of the most 
 signal triumphs any man could rejoice in), he would, 
 from impatience at his mind outrunning its servant the 
 mouth, leave a sentence it had boggled at, in disdain, 
 standing as it were on one leg but we all knew what 
 the other was. In speaking he reversed Ovid's words, 
 his material transcended his workmanship. 
 
 There is a good, but not the best, likeness of him in 
 marble by Brodie ; it wants his look of breeding. Rich- 
 mond took him in one of those, to use a much-abused 
 word, charming drawings, in which every one looks de- 
 lightful and thoroughbred and like the man, but some- 
 times not quite the man, and which are all like each other. 
 It is of it that Mr. Syme told that when the artist al- 
 lowed him to see the drawing when finished, he said, " It
 
 MR. SYME. 297 
 
 is like, but then it is good-looking ! " " Ah, yes, we do 
 it lovingly." I wish some of our artists would at least 
 not do the reverse of this. 
 
 The photograph taken at St. Andrews by Adamson 
 gives the fullest idea of his nature its strength and 
 gentleness in repose. It has, too, his might-be formida- 
 ble look, a look we all knew, and did not desire to see 
 repeated. 
 
 In his little room in the Surgical Hospital once the 
 High School where Sir Walter, Jeffrey, Cockburn, 
 Homer, and Brougham were bred his house-surgeons 
 and clerks and dressers now all over the world, work- 
 ing out his principles and practice will well remember 
 how delightful he was, standing with his back to the fire, 
 making wise jokes jacula prudentis now abating a 
 procacious youth, now heartening a shy homely one, 
 himself liaud ignarus, giving his old stories of Greg- 
 ory and Dr. Barclay. How the latter who had been 
 a " stickit minister," was a capital teacher of anatomy 
 and good sense used to say to his students, " Gen- 
 tlemen ! Vesaalius and his fellows were the reapers in 
 the great field of anatomy John Hunter and his breth- 
 ren were the gleaners and we gentlemen ! are the 
 stubble geese ! " Little thought he of the harvest that 
 lay at the roots of the stubble and all the revelations 
 of the microscope, the cell theory and much else! 
 Then there was the story of Dr. Greville, the botanist, 
 telling him, Dr. Barclay, that he had been out at Mid- 
 dleton Moor, searching all day in vain for Buxbaumia 
 Aphylla. " Bux what ? and what 's remarkable about 
 it ? " " It's a very rare moss and very difficult to find." 
 " Weel, I lost a sixpence when I had few o' them, 
 fifty years ago, on Middleton Moor, and searched for it
 
 298 MR. SYME. 
 
 maist of a day gang oot and try it'll be as difficult 
 to find as your Buxbaumia ; " and then we had John 
 Abernethy, whom he thought the greatest surgical mind 
 since John Hunter and Percival Pott; and his joke with 
 the lady of quality, who came to him and said, " I 'm 
 quite well, Mr. Abernethy." " So I see, Madam." " But, 
 Mr. Abernethy, whenever I do that " (making a vehement 
 and preposterous flourish of her hand over her head), " I 
 have a terrible pain." "Then, Madam, why the devil 
 do you do that ? " It was in this little room Mr. Syme 
 was in his glory and let his whole nature out and 
 these daily treats were interspersed with remarks on the 
 current patients making the dressers tell their sev- 
 eral stones and always as thoughtful as keen, filling 
 their eager minds as they stood in a semicircle before 
 him, intentique ora tenebant with truths the value of 
 which they found in after years. And there were Mrs. 
 Porter and Mrs. Lambert, the nurses, who reigned over 
 the male and female wards who will ever forget their 
 kind and shrewd faces, and old-fashioned sense and 
 tongues ? 
 
 The following words by Mr. Lister give his estimate 
 of his master and father-in-law's worth : 
 
 " Mr. Syme may be said to have been as a surgeon 
 ' in all supreme, complete in every part.' In clear per- 
 ception and luminous exposition of surgical principles, 
 both pathological and practical, he stood unrivalled ; yet 
 he was equally conspicuous for the correctness of his 
 diagnosis, his originality and ingenuity in device, and his 
 admirable excellence in execution. His success was due 
 not merely to his great intellectual gifts and manual 
 dexterity, but full as much to his genial, sympathizing
 
 MR. SYME. 299 
 
 love alike for patient and student, his transparent truth- 
 fulness, and his exalted sense of honor. These noble 
 qualities made him keen in the pursuit of his science, sin- 
 gle-minded and earnest in the discharge of surgical duty, 
 and influential for good in an immeasurable degree 
 with those who came within the range of his personal 
 teaching."
 
 SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON. 
 
 E of our oldest and most distinguished citi- 
 zens a man of European reputation was 
 laid in his grave yesterday, 1 followed by a mul- 
 titude of mourners. 
 
 Sir Robert Christison was our ultimus Romanorum, 
 for he had in him much of the best of the old Ro- 
 man, the last of the great race ; his companions at 
 starting the Gregorys, Alison, and Syme, etc. all 
 gone before him. He was, as to will and ability, a pri- 
 mary man ; not that he was what is commonly called a 
 man of genius, rather he was a man of a quite unusual 
 quantity and quality of talent, that is, power of ap- 
 plying his faculties to given objects. Mr. Syme had 
 talent and genius too, but Christison had what might be 
 called a genius for exact and strenuous work, for general 
 energizing of body and mind. He had a knack of get- 
 ting things at first hand ; his knowledge was immediate, 
 more than mediate. He was emphatically an Edinburgh 
 man, all his life long going in and out before us, seen 
 and read of all men. No man ever thought there was 
 in him what was not there, though many might not find 
 all that was there, for his heart was not worn on his 
 sleeve ; and in some of the deeper parts of his nature 
 be, perhaps, did himself injustice, from his recoil from the 
 1 February 1, 1882.
 
 SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON. E01 
 
 opposite excess. "We are all proud of the noble old 
 man (old only in years), with his erect head, his rapid 
 step, his air of command. 
 
 Of his inner character, as already said, he made no 
 show, but it might be divined by the discerning mind, 
 for he was too proud and too sincere to conceal anything. 
 
 Till the last four weeks, though his health had been 
 somewhat failing for two years, his mental faculties re 
 mained entire and alert. His voice and mind were as 
 powerful as ever when he spoke at the meeting with 
 Lord Rosebery and the Lord Advocate on the Scottish 
 Universities. He retained to the last his love of Nature 
 and his pursuit of her glories and beauties, happy in 
 proving that his old friend Ben Nevis was not only king 
 of the Bens, but that he had the noblest glen and the 
 grandest precipice of them all. May we, his citizens, 
 be the better of thinking of that honorable, full, and 
 well-spent life, manly, gentlemanly, upright, true to 
 old friends and faiths. Non cum corpora extinguuntur 
 magnce anima, placide quiescas ! 
 
 No man who once saw Sir Robert Christison could 
 ever mistake him for any one else. His nature was ho- 
 mogeneous, and curiously consistent. As a physician, 
 though he might not have all the suavity and expressive 
 kindliness of the elder and younger Begbies, nor the 
 shall we call it ? mesmeric power of the huge-brained 
 and anomalous Simpson ; nor that instant fixture of re- 
 liance which Syme's eyes, more even than his words, 
 gave and kept ; nor the penetrating look, as of a war- 
 lock, of Dr. John Scott, he had much of the best that 
 they had not in such quantity he had the momentum 
 of a strong, clear, well-knowledged mind, determined on
 
 302 SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON. 
 
 doing its best for his patient's good, and that best well 
 worth its name, and, once confided in, he was so for- 
 ever. To have such a command of all known drugs, he 
 was singularly simple in his medicines and general treat- 
 ment. As a lecturer he was, for the subjects he treated, 
 we may say perfect, full of immediate knowledge as 
 distinguished from mediate, orderly in its arrangement, 
 lucid in its exposition rather, perhaps, than luminous, 
 for it did not need that strong and impressive in its 
 application. His life-long friend Mr. Syme was some- 
 times more luminous than lucid, though always full of 
 power over the thought of others, quickening it, and 
 making what he said unforgetable. That great, amor- 
 phous genius, John Goodsir, was often largely luminous 
 and sometimes sparingly lucid. 
 
 In his experiments Christison was exquisite and never 
 failed, unlike his excellent and gifted predecessor, Dr. 
 Andrew Duncan, Junr., whom some of us elders may 
 remember setting agoing a process at the beginning of 
 the hour, telling us (unluckily) what we would see, and 
 then casting, all through the lecture, furtive, and at last 
 desperate and almost beseeching glances at the obdurate 
 bottle, till at the close he, with a sad smile, said, " Gen- 
 tlemen, the failure of this experiment proves more than 
 its success ! " 
 
 The bent of Christison's mind was scientific and posi- 
 tive rather than philosophic, speculative, or presaging. 
 He was more occupied with what is, than with why it is, 
 or what it may become, and in this region he did his 
 proper work excellently, with a clear decision and thor- 
 oughness. 
 
 He had the natural qualities of a great soldier, and 
 was full of martial ardor and sense. He has some*
 
 SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON. 303 
 
 times been called distant and cold. He had great natural 
 dignity, and was not of an effusive turn, being warmer 
 inside than out, which is better than the reverse ; but 
 that he had tender and deep feelings, as well as strong 
 energy and will, the following circumstances may well 
 show. It refers to what, if said in his lifetime, would 
 have brought a flush of displeasure on that noble face. 
 His wife, a woman of great beauty, and better, was in 
 her last long illness. She was going to the country for 
 a month, and her husband heard her give orders that a 
 piece of worsted work which she had finished should be 
 grounded and made up as an ottoman, and ready in the 
 drawing-room on her return. A few days before that, 
 he asked if it was completed ; it had been totally for- 
 gotten. He said nothing ; but getting possession of the 
 piece, he sat up for two or three nights and grounded it 
 with his own hand, had it made up, and set his wife 
 down on it, as she wished. Is not that beautiful? a 
 true, manly tenderness, worth much and worth remem- 
 bering : " Out of the strong came forth sweetness." His 
 love of Nature, from her flowers to hr precipices and 
 mountains, and his pursuit of her into her wildest fast- 
 nesses, " haunted him like a passion," increasing with 
 his years. His Highland residences during the latter 
 part of his life gave him great delight, and fed his in- 
 trepid, keen, searching spirit. He never saw a big 
 mountain but he heard it, as it were, saying to him, 
 " Come on and up ; " and on and up he went, scaling 
 the tragic Cobbler and many else. He had a genius for 
 nice handiwork, and took pains with everything he did. 
 The beauty and minuteness of his penmanship we all 
 know ; he might, as Thackery said of himself, have
 
 304 CIB ROBERT CHRISTISOX. 
 
 turned an honest penny by writing the Lord's Prayer 
 on the size of a sixpence. 
 
 But we must end, though half has not been said. "We, 
 his old friends, can never forget him, or hope ever to see 
 his like again.
 
 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM 
 OF DUNTRUNE. 
 
 I played with the bairnies at bowls and at ba' t 
 And left them a' greeting when I cam' awa? / 
 Ay I mil/ters and bairnies, and lassies and a', 
 Were a' sobbin' loudly when I cam? awa'. 
 
 20
 
 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM OF DUNTRUNE. 
 
 HIS gifted, excellent, and most delightful old 
 lady, the perfect type of a Scottish gentle- 
 woman, died yesterday afternoon, 23d August 
 1877, at her beautiful seat Duntrune, in Forfarshire, 
 above BroughLy Ferry, overlooking the Ta,y, with the 
 woods of Ballumbie on one side, and those of Linlathen, 
 her dear friend Mr. Erskine's estate, on the other, and 
 with St. Andrews and the noble tower of St. Rule 
 standing out clear on the sky line to the south. Miss 
 Graham was in her ninety-sixth year, having been born 
 in 1782. Her father, Patrick Stirling of Pitteudreich, 
 in the county of Forfar, and a much esteemed merchant 
 in Dundee, married the heiress of Duntrune, and Miss 
 Graham, the eldest of two daughters, a brother having 
 predeceased her, inherited the property. The other 
 daughter was the wife of Colonel Lacon, and to her 
 daughters' unfailing love Miss Graham owed much of 
 the best happiness of her life. Her birthplace was an 
 old house in a narrow back lane, leading off the main 
 thoroughfare of Dundee, which is still, we believe, 
 pointed out to strangers as the place where the au- 
 thoress of the Mystifications * first saw the light. Her 
 life may almost be said to have been one long summer 
 day, not without its clouds, but on the whole happy, 
 delightful, and beneficent in no ordinary degree. Few 
 
 1 See the paper on Mystifications in the first series of Spare Hours.
 
 308 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM. 
 
 have left the world so regarded with immediate, un- 
 mixed, and deserved affection, and fewer still have re- 
 tained to the last, as she did, the pure, fresh, unblunted 
 attachments of childhood to their friends. Dying at 
 ninety-five, she was as gay and truthful and artless as a 
 girl, with all the serious and " thoughtful breath " that 
 becomes a " traveller between life and death." 
 
 Always full of benevolence and public spirit, one of 
 the earliest manifestations of this was some time ago 
 amusingly told by an old Forfarshire farmer, whom a 
 friend of ours happened to fall in with in the neighbor- 
 hood of Dundee. When Dr. Jenner's great discovery 
 was first announced it immediately attracted Miss Gra- 
 ham's interest and enthusiasm, and long before the Fac- 
 ulty became alive to its importance she used to ride 
 about on her little white pony vaccinating with a needle 
 every child whose birth she heard of in her neighbor- 
 hood. We have been told that in this way she protected 
 from a terrible scourge of the smallpox not less than 
 about 300 infants. Our farmer friend had been one of 
 her early patients. So carefully was it done that it used 
 to be said that none of those operated on by Miss Graham 
 ever took smallpox. 
 
 In public affairs it was the same thing always on 
 the side of the right and the true. She was a life-long 
 Liberal liberal in all the senses of the word. Though 
 intimate with Sir Walter Scott, who has recorded his ad- 
 miration of her in one of his diaries, she consorted mainly 
 with the men of the Edinburgh Review. Jeffrey, Syd- 
 ney Smith, Gillies, Cockburn, Eutherfurd, Murray, and 
 all that great race whom we had and have not, were 
 among her friends. It was to her that Sydney Smith 
 made that famous joke, of the day being so hot that " he
 
 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM. 309 
 
 wished he could put off his flesh and sit in his bones, 
 and let the wind whistle through them." In her own 
 county, where everybody knew her and she knew every- 
 body and who their forebears were, she will be long 
 remembered. The love of the people for her and their 
 pride in her were wonderful. Those who were nearest 
 to her the inmates of her household, her servants, her 
 dependents, her tenants cherished for her something 
 like adoration she was so tender-hearted, and, inter- 
 ested in all their interests, so steadfast a friend. So 
 modest was she, so just in her sense of herself, that 
 every one was at ease with her, and felt that whatever 
 she did and said and felt was as real as the material ob- 
 jects about them. 'She was always being and doing good 
 in multitudes of unseen ways. 
 
 To her intimate friends, it is not for us to say what 
 she was and what her loss is. But even to the outside 
 public she is endeared by her marvellous Mystifications, 
 which, as far as we know, are quite unique in literature. 
 We have all heard how, in the pleasantest and most 
 thorough way, she " took in " Jeffrey, Sir Walter, Sir 
 Daniel Sandford, William Clerk, Count Flahault, and 
 everybody ; how with a fine faculty for satire she never 
 pained ; with so much sense she was never dull ; with so 
 much wit and pleasantry she was never excessive in any 
 way ; for her nature was based on love and goodness. 
 Who among us does not remember though we have 
 hardly the heart now to think of them the wonderful 
 interview at 92 George Street between Jeffrey and the 
 Lady Pitlyal the " pykin " of the king's teeth and the 
 royal patent of " weel pykit," the stiff clay land that 
 "grat a' winter and girned a' simmer," which threw Dr. 
 Coventry, the agricultural professor, into convulsions of
 
 310 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM. 
 
 delight ? It was a singular gift. Meet Miss Graham 
 in company and you found her quiet, unpretending, sen- 
 sible, shrewd, kindly perhaps you did not remark 
 anything extraordinary in her. But let her put on the 
 old lady, and immediately it was as if a warlock's spell 
 had passed over her. Not merely her look but her na- 
 ture was changed. Her spirit had passed into the char- 
 acter she represented, and jest, quick retort, whimsical 
 fancy, the wildest humor flowed from her lips with a 
 freedom and truth to nature which would have been 
 impossible in her own personality. The Mystification* 
 were at first privately printed, and it was with some 
 difficulty she was prevailed on to give them to the pub- 
 lic. They soon passed here and in America into perma- 
 nent favorites. Miss Graham also published in 1829 
 The Bee Book, a translation of M. de Gelieu's work 
 and fifty years afterwards she republished it, to the 
 great benefit of all bee-keepers. 
 
 She retained'to the last all her faculties and affections 
 her memory, her humor, her interest in life, her tender 
 fidelity to friends, her love, we might almost say her 
 happy-heartedness, passion for nature and all things fair. 
 One little scene of her early life we like to recall. She 
 and her next neighbor, the late Mr. Erskine of Lin- 
 lathen, were always great friends, and some now alive, 
 we believe, can still remember seeing them occasionally 
 riding out together the two so like in some respects, 
 and so unlike II Peuseroso and L' Allegro he dis- 
 coursing doubtless even then, in those young days, of 
 "righteousness," and she listening, but with her eyes 
 wide awake the while, to the outward nature which she 
 loved so well, and with a keen and kindly look to the 
 country folk who passed them on the road.
 
 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM. 311 
 
 Until the last few years Miss Graham used to spend 
 her winters in Edinburgh, and her modest house in 
 Forth Street (No. 29), with its bright happy evenings, 
 of which she was the heart and life, can never be for- 
 gotten by those who survive them. With her have 
 perished a thousand memories of old Edinburgh and 
 Forfarshire society. Some of these are added as an ap- 
 pendix to the last edition of the Mystifications; but 
 they want, of course, the life and spirit which, when 
 telling them to her friends, she used to put into many a 
 happy story of these old times. 
 
 To those who know the Mystifications it is hardly 
 necessary to say that she possessed a true literary fac- 
 ulty. The writing is always clear, simple, unaffected, 
 and in perfect taste. With all her sense of humor there 
 was an underlying seriousness in her character; very 
 touching and tender, for instance, are the dedication of 
 Mystifications to Mrs. Gillies, and the lines with which 
 she concludes. " Few," she says, writing in Decem- 
 ber 1868, " are now alive who shared or assisted in 
 these joyous scenes, and the Mystifier, at an advanced 
 age, waits in humble reliance the certainty of her sum- 
 mons." 
 
 "Blessed shades of the past, 
 In the future I see ye, so fair ! 
 
 Ties that were nearest, 
 
 Forms that were dearest, 
 The truest and fondest are there. 
 
 " They are flowerets of earth, 
 That are blooming in heaven, so fair! 
 
 And the stately tree, 
 
 Spreading wide and free, 
 The sheaves that were ripened are there.
 
 312 MISS STIRLING GRAHAM. 
 
 "The tear-drop that trembled 
 In Pity's meek eye ; and the prayer, 
 
 Faith of the purest, 
 
 Hope that was surest, 
 The love all-enduring are there. 
 
 " And the loved, the beloved, 
 Whose life made existence so fair! 
 The soft seraph voice 
 Bade the lowly rejoice, 
 Is heard in sweet harmony there.'*
 
 SIB E. LANDSEERS PICTURE 
 
 THERE 'S LIFE IN THE OLD DOG JET. 
 ETC., ETC.
 
 SIR E. LANDSEER'S PICTURE 
 
 " THEKE 'S LIFE IN THE OLD DOG YET." 
 1851. 
 
 E have had several of Landseer's* best pictures 
 lately, but we are not likely soon to cry, "Hold, 
 enough ! " The natural eye and heart is not 
 easily wearied by Nature and her true interpreters, be 
 they poets, philosophers, or painters ; the great point is 
 to get Nature, and then render her aright. It is, by the 
 way, a new element in the fine arts, this setting famous 
 pictures on their travels, and is on the whole a good one. 
 We cheerfully adopt the peripatetic or to-and-fro doc- 
 trine thus far. A brisk circulation is the great thing in 
 the body, natural, social, and commercial, keep things 
 going, large and quick returns ; and it is one proof of a 
 higher organization, or, to use the cant phrase, "develop- 
 ment " of the body politic, as it is of the individual ani- 
 mal, when there is a heart, and when it sends its life 
 giving stream swiftly round. Caterpillars, and dead, 
 degraded, and somnolent nations have a local half-and- 
 half sort of circulation, they want the one grand central 
 organ ; but lest our readers should mistake us, we don't 
 think this organ in our body politic is London, though 
 Wordsworth calls it this " mighty heart," it is the 
 grand amount of the intelligence, refinement, and good- 
 ness of the whole people. We therefore do not despair
 
 316 SIR E. LAXDSEER'S PICTURE. 
 
 of having a visit of the Venus de Medici or of the Dy- 
 ing Gladiator, or oven the entire Tribune of Florence, 
 with its riches ; and getting tickets from Mr. Hill or Mr. 
 Crichton, that they are on view, and thus seeing in our 
 own " Auld Reekie " what has so long " entranced the 
 world." This picture of Sir Edwin's is remarkable in 
 several respects : it is very large ; it is twenty years old ; 
 it gives us a curious means of judging of his young and 
 his present style, and seeing how he is the same and yet 
 different ; it has the grand English qualification of being 
 worth 5000, or 200 a year at 4 per cent. ; and best 
 of all, it is a truly great and honest picture. By hon- 
 est, we mean that the painter does his part in truth and 
 honor, no blinking of difficulties, no filling up out of the 
 lumber-room of other people's odds and ends, called his 
 imagination ; his is the truthful loving study of nature. 
 This picture bears this out in every part, and it is worth 
 remarking that being of so large a size, he had the 
 ready temptation to "generalize" and paint for effect. 
 But he loved nature and honesty and himself too well to 
 do this, and he has had his reward. Look at his last 
 picture at Mr. Hill's, the " Random Shot," that dead 
 mother and her suckling calf, on the cold mountain-top, 
 and you will see the recompense of true work at the be- 
 ginning of life and of art. There he has reached the 
 domain of the " shaping spirit of imagination ; " he has 
 got the flower in summer because he planted the seed in 
 spring, and cherished the plant. 
 
 We will not describe this picture ; it does that for 
 itself. The entire " scene " strikes us as wonderfully 
 real. That wild place, out of the reach probably for 
 ages of anything but a bird, a moonbeam, or a lightning 
 stroke, is filled at once to our eyes with the interest of
 
 SIR E. LANDSEEB'S PICTURE. 317 
 
 death, life, human sympathy, and the grandeur of na- 
 ture. You hear the gruff honest fellow, with his hand- 
 some face, his iron-gray hair, wet with exertion, and his 
 speaking hand, 1 shouting out (in Gaelic from his mouth, 
 and in the universal language from his eyes), " There 's 
 life in the old Dog yet," and you know by his curved 
 lip, his loud look, his anxious eye, and trumpet hand, 
 how far above him is his audience, and the thorough-bred 
 deerhound, happy and contented even in its suffering, for 
 he has got his gentle head on the breast of his master, 
 who is his god. Let our readers mark the blush of its 
 skin through the hair, as indicating the fierce race, and 
 how its tail is drawn in by pain and terror ; but there is 
 no end of admiring. It is humanely and beautifully 
 managed, that the other two are quite dead and at rest; 
 it is a true touch of nature to leave the light springing 
 deerhound alone alive of the three. We need hardly 
 speak of the miraculous antlers. 
 
 Of course we know, by an act of our understanding, 
 that in Mr. Critchton's room, in the heart of Edinburgh, 
 and within that gilded frame, they must be " painted " 
 horns; but who does not "feel" them to be veritable 
 hartshorn ? The color of the whole is deep and rich, per- 
 haps a little too rich in the figures ; but it is finely har- 
 monized. The management of the " reds " is a study 
 to artists. The great subdued mass on the plaid, the 
 smaller on the tartan stockings, the dead dog's open 
 mouth and gums, the stag's tongue, and the small, in- 
 tense, living tongue of the deerhound, the stony, obdu- 
 rate look of the granite blocks, the wild confusion and 
 the verdure, those soothing bits of nature's life-giving 
 touch, working her will sweetly in the midst of desola 
 tion, the receding distance, with its mists and ghostly
 
 318 SIR E. LAXDSEER'S PICTURE. 
 
 waterfalls, giving to the ear the idea of continual, vague 
 murmuring, the rack of clouds drifting across, the 
 rope telling the story, all this who else could do so 
 well ? It is a great beauty in Landseer, as it is in Ru- 
 bens, that landscape, dogs, men, flowers, everything is 
 " his own," seen with his own eye, rendered by his own 
 hand. It would be well that our young dashing artists, 
 who are for bold-handling execution, would take a les- 
 son from this picture. 
 
 Landseer must have been young when he painted 
 this, and yet how " conscientious " (we say this seri- 
 ously) the whole performance, how thoroughly honest, 
 and paid in full. Let our young friends take a note of 
 this. The only thing in this picture left to what some 
 of them would call their fancy, is wrong. It is the twist 
 of the double rope ; the twist is going the same way in 
 the up and down rope. 
 
 The etching by Ryall is first-rate ; it looks like an 
 original sketch by the artist himself, so bold and free 
 and subtle his handling, so up to the full idea. 
 
 We would despair of him making the remaining work 
 equal had we not before us his Columbus, by Wilkie. 
 We can most cordially recommend this engraving. There 
 is a common, and, we may be allowed to call it, a some- 
 what vulgar and " lassieish " objection to Landseer's 
 subjects, that they are painful, as in the case of such 
 representations as those of the " Otter Hunt," where 
 that indomitable wretch, "game" to the last, is held up 
 transfixed and writhing under the adoring and praying 
 tyes, and shaggy muzzles and legs, of up-looking little 
 sturdy ruffians, the terriers and otter hounds, there is 
 too much that is painful ; but in such a picture as this of 
 the " Old Dog " we think the prevailing feeling is, and
 
 HALLE'S RECITAL. 319 
 
 should be, pleasurable, and that humane and hearty 
 sympathy which is one of the best results of painting, 
 or of anything else. 
 
 Young ladies of a tender turn, and who weep their 
 fine eyes and handkerchiefs ugly and sad with sympa- 
 thetic tears for distressed lovers in a book (they do 
 very different when they meet them in real life, except 
 they be themselves in the case) would say on seeing 
 this picture, Oh ! shocking ! What a horrid sight ! 
 Blood and tongues ! What a horrid man Landseer must 
 be ! Let us analyze the dear creature's horror. It is 
 her own pain chiefly that is horrid, it is not her feeling 
 for the animals. It is the same sort of dislike to the 
 sight that a bad smell causes to the nose ; it has little 
 better in it than this. A moderate measure of pain, 
 a real moral sympathy with the lower animals, and a 
 feeling of uneasiness on account of their sufferings, a 
 going-out towards them, to love and be good to them, is 
 a useful lesson for us all. Art is not a mere toy to be 
 joked with and laughed at, it is a deep and too little 
 read passage in the nature and in the mind of man, and 
 with all reverence, it is one of the true manifestations 
 of Him who made, and governs, and blesses us all. 
 
 HALLE'S RECITAL. 
 
 January SO, 1863. 
 
 IF it be a great pleasure to see others pleased, and a 
 greater to be the pleaser, then must this gifted and ac- 
 complished artist have been very happy during his two 
 hours on Saturday afternoon. Here was he, all by him- 
 self, sitting down at his piano, as if he were at his owe
 
 320 HALLE'S RECITAL. 
 
 fireside, and having his " At Home " with some fifteen 
 hundred happy people, to each one of whom the hours 
 seemed all too short. 
 
 "We seldom see, or rather feel (for we were all so 
 much engaged that there was little seeing and less look- 
 ing, even the perennial cough was checked, to the near 
 suffocation of some self-sacrificing people whom we 
 heard in by-corners tampering with apoplexy and as- 
 phyxia), so many people having so much of the same 
 enjoyment all at once, and yet each ear making its own 
 of all it heard, telling its own secret story to itself. 
 
 What it was to see Taglioni make music to the eye, 
 gliding about like a shadow, or bounding like a pard, or 
 merely walking ; or to see Ducrow in his " Dumb Man 
 of Manchester," making his every action speak ; what 
 it was to hear Grisi sing, or William Murray or his sis- 
 ter act the same quiet mastery of expression, the same 
 perfection of feeling and making to feel, the same 
 power of making little into much, and much into more ; 
 so it is to come under the charm of this pure, consum- 
 mate musician. You think of him at first simply as the 
 cause of what he achieves ; you find yourself as little 
 . hinking of him of the means of what is to you the 
 pleasant end as he himself plainly is each, giver 
 and receivers, are taken up with the idea and its expres- 
 sion, he giving it out, they taking it in ; or rather it is 
 so perfectly expressed that you reach it as it were im- 
 mediately, and get to its life and soul at once, and 
 straight. Much of this arises from his quiet, simple, 
 sensible face and manner. He knows that he is a means 
 to an end not an end in himself, as too many of our 
 performers are, and he gets the best reward in being 
 ultimately himself an end as well, and all the better.
 
 HALLE'S RECITAL. 321 
 
 Y"ou think him not the less clever, not the less executive, 
 brilliant, subtle, penetrating, delicate, firm, and up to 
 "impossible passages," in a word, not the less expres- 
 sive, that he never says to you, " Now, listen, how 
 clever, how delicious, how miraculous I am ! " And it 
 is this possession of his theme, and his self-possession in 
 the best sense, that makes one great secret of his play- 
 ing ; it is not less unaffected and to the point (only much 
 more delightful) than the talk of your man of business. 
 Then think of the rest and satisfying play of the mind, 
 of the diversion in its true meaning, of the many jaded 
 minds, and heavy and weary hearts, and it may be vexed 
 ears, of our busy men and women. Music can soothe 
 other than savage beasts ; and next to active exercise 
 to a ride across the Pentlands or a walk across Corstor- 
 phine Hill, and in some deeper and gentler ways, better 
 even than these, though both are best is the passing 
 two hours of a Saturday, after the week's toil and 
 worry, its wear and tear, in hearing pure good master- 
 pieces purely expressed. We are all the better of 
 heartily admiring the same thing, the same thought, and 
 the same giver or transmitter of the thought. There- 
 fore' it is that we miss the old Saturday subscription con- 
 certs, where the great classics were worthily rendered. 
 Who can forget Mozart's " Jupiter," or the overture to 
 " Der Freischiitz," or the delicious, innocent, Elysian 
 " Surprise " of Haydn as if it had wandered out of 
 Paradise ; or the many-voiced sonatas of Beethoven 
 leep, mobile, unfathomable, melancholy as the sea ; 
 or the quartettes with violins and violoncello, rising 
 each above the other like larks singing at " Heaven's 
 gate," or like transcendental nightingales in a sweet 
 strife 
 
 21
 
 322 HALLE'S RECITAL. 
 
 11 That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates 
 With fast thick warble [their] delicious notes. 
 
 They answer and provoke each other's song, 
 With skirmish and capricious passagings, 
 And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, 
 And one low piping sound more sweet than all." 
 
 Why should not we have these pleasures back again ? 
 I dare say we might if we all asked them loud enough. 
 
 Beethoven's " Grand Sonata in D" was the first and 
 largest recital ; and is it not a great achievement this 
 sitting down without anything but memory, and what a 
 memory ! his fingers, and his genius, his tact and taste, 
 and, for anything we see, telling us his own present 
 Presto and Largo e Mesto, his special at the moment 
 Minuetto Allegro and his last Rondo Allegro taking us 
 into his confidence, and getting ours for the asking. As 
 is often the case, we speak in profoundest ignorance of 
 the science or the art beyond being the delighted sub- 
 jects of their emotional effects. Beethoven begins with 
 a trouble, a wandering and groping in the dark, a strange 
 emergence of order out of chaos, a wild rich confusion 
 and misrule. Wilful and passionate, often harsh, and as 
 it were thick with gloom ; then comes as if " it stole 
 upon the air," the burden of the theme, the still sad 
 music Largo e, Mesto so human, so sorrowful, and 
 yet the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by some- 
 v hing better, like the sea after a dark night of tempest 
 ialling asleep in the young light of morning, and " whis- 
 pering how meek and gentle it can be." 
 
 This likeness to the sea, its immensity, its uncertainty, 
 its wild strong glory and play, its peace, its solitude, its 
 unsearchableness, its prevailing sadness, comes more 
 into our minds with this great and deep master's works
 
 HALLE'S RECITAL. 323 
 
 than with any other. If we think of Handel, his u 
 " the sea of glass," and the overarching " body of heaven 
 in its clearness," the " harpers harping on their harps," 
 the far-off " sound of many waters," echoing to " the ut- 
 most bounds of the everlasting hills," " the voice of a 
 great multitude and of many thunderings," the " seven- 
 fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies," 
 " the throne and equipage of God's Almightiness." But 
 it seems to us that with the restless, capacious, unsatis- 
 fied and satisfying German, so full of passion and 
 tenderness, so full of the utterance of 
 
 " The still, sad music of humanity," 
 
 the sea, we all know, and love, and fear is the likely 
 symbol. 
 
 Sebastian Bach's perfect Gavotte and Musette were 
 given to perfection, his purity, his crystalline depth, his 
 inveteracy, his working out absolutely and exquisitely 
 his germinal idea, nothing could be better. Somehow 
 we did not much care for, and do not much remember 
 Mendelssohn's " Presto Scherzando ; " it was too fanci- 
 ful, too soon, shall we say, after the great old Sebastian ? 
 but we confess to not always liking, and sometimes not 
 taking in, the main purpose of his music. Doubtless, 
 we are in a pitiful minority as to this. Compared with 
 the greatest masters, we feel him at times difficult, ca- 
 pricious, and thin. Weber's " Invitation a la Valse " was 
 as everybody's heart and feet, especially the young 
 ones' feet, beat time to it in their minds simply de 
 licious from beginning to end. We confess to having 
 been quite beside ourselves, indeed finding ourselves 
 away altogether ; and in the full blaze of one of those 
 ball-rooms which we can all dance our fill in, and choose 
 our partners, and get no mischief and behold !
 
 824 HALLE'S RECITAL. 
 
 "Yestreen when to the stented string 
 The dance gaed through the lichted ha'." 
 
 We saw with our own eyes that splendid young fellow 
 a prince of course with his dark hair and eyes, 
 with that well-known glow in them finding her out at 
 once in that shadowy recess, where her mother had left 
 her for a moment, there he is bending down and asking 
 her to tread a measure. Of course, he was Lochinvar, 
 only much handsomer, gentler, altogether an unspeak- 
 ahler heing than that hasty young reiver who was so 
 hard hunted across Cannobie-lee. She 
 
 " Her eyes like stars of twilight fair, 
 Like twilight, too, her dusky hair ; 
 But all things else about her drawn 
 From Maytime and the cheerful dawn," 
 
 looks still more down, flushes doubtless, and quietly, in 
 the shadow, says " No " and -means " Yes," says 
 "Yes" and fully means it, and they are off! All this 
 small whispered love-making and dainty device, this 
 coaxing and being coaxed, is in the (all too short for us, 
 but not for them) prelude to the waltz, the real business 
 of the piece and evening. And then such a waltz for 
 waltzing ! Such precision and decision ! whisking them 
 round, moulding them into twin orbs, hurrying them 
 past and away from everything and everyone but them- 
 selves. Now they all but disappear, and are far away, 
 almost out of sight and hearing, round they come ! here 
 again ! happier than ever, he firmer, perfecter, abler, 
 she playing with those little feet the nicest second in the 
 world. Well, the waltz ends, and they and you have 
 their fill, and they sit down in the same shadowy nook, 
 happy and out of breath, and begin again the same 
 M murmurs made to bless," only lower, more serious and
 
 HALLE'S EECITAL. 825 
 
 more silent ; and for our parts we must be excused for 
 saying that we have good reason to believe, indeed we 
 must believe our own eyes, that in this interesting case, 
 the business adjourned to an alcove out of the moon- 
 light, the sound of fountains and the dancers faintly 
 heard, and our two young individuals sitting with excel- 
 lent effect, for a well-known scene in Retzsch's " Song of 
 the Bell," to which we beg to refer our readers, old and 
 young, it being observed that the " parients " of both 
 parties are at a respectful distance, under an old arbo 
 d'amore, such as we have seen in the Royal Garden at 
 Aranjuez a-blessing of the young people. But soberly, 
 this was one of Mr. Halle's most perfect bits of art, as 
 it is one of the most perfect flowers of the genius of that 
 " marvellous boy " who perished in his bloom ; it is full 
 of the sweetness and the sadness, the richness, the fresh 
 blossoming of youth, like the " Eclogues " of Collins, 
 or the " Endymion " of Keats, the " first crush of the 
 grapes," the " odorous breath " and the swift vanishing 
 of the " sweet hour of prime." 
 
 Next came the Allegro con molto expressions, and the 
 Allegretto ma non troppo e Cantabile, from Beethoven's 
 Sonata in E minor. This piece, especially the latter 
 half, which was cantabile indeed, is the one which lingers 
 most in our ear and mind ; it took more possession of us, 
 was to us " more moving delicate, and full of life," 
 was the one thing we would more have rather not lost, 
 than any of the others ; its loveliness, its fulness, its 
 happiness, its heavenliness can only be told by itself. It 
 seemed as if it spoke out all its secret, told it to us and 
 to itself for the first time, innocently as a child, or an 
 angel, " still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim ; " or 
 like an TEolian harp with a soul and a will and pur
 
 326 HALLE'S RECITAL. 
 
 pose of its own, and a tune which it made the vagrant 
 winds play as it listed, not as they. It had the un- 
 expectedness, the swells as of music from a far country, 
 come and gone, of that witching but unsatisfying in- 
 strument. For, unlike it, this had a story to tell with 
 all its caprice and swift changes, and was not a mere 
 wandering voice, bent upon nothing. But we are too 
 hard on the harps that we used long ago to get from 
 Keswick, and which we pleased ourselves with thinking 
 sang to us the songs of " Glaramara's inmost caves," not 
 to speak of a stave from Scafell and the Pikes, and a 
 weird sough through " the pining umbrage " of '' those 
 fraternal Four of Borrowdale." Do you remember Cole- 
 ridge's lines, " composed at Clevedou, Somersetshire ? " 
 when sitting with his " pensive Sara " they heard " the 
 stilly murmur of the distant sea telling of silence;" 
 and then came the music of 
 
 " That simplest lute 
 
 Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark ! 
 How by the desultory breeze caressed, 
 Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, 
 It pours such sweet upbraiding as must needs 
 Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings 
 Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes 
 Over delicious surges sink and rise 
 Such a soft floating witchery of sound 
 As twilight elfins make when they at eve 
 Voyage on gentle gales from Fairyland, 
 Where melodies round honey-drooping flowers, 
 Footless and wild, like birds of paradise, 
 Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing I 
 the one life within us and abroad, 
 Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, 
 A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, 
 Rhythm in all thought and joyance everywhere, 
 Methinks, it should have been impossible 
 Not to love all things in a world so filled ; 
 Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air 
 Is Music slumbering on her instrument."
 
 HALLE'S RECITAL. 327 
 
 This is beautiful, is it not ? But we prefer Beetho- 
 ven's harping to that of .^Eolus ; there is method in his 
 madness ; there is a greatness in his gentleness ; it 
 soothes our wild discontents and regrets ; it sings them, 
 like blind giants, to sleep, like Ariel charming Caliban, 
 the uncanny, clumsy, and glum. Field's nocturne in E 
 flat was pretty, but we could see to the bottom, and we 
 suspect the kindly and modest reciter brought more out 
 of it than Field ever put in. Heller's " Dans les Bois " 
 was given con amore, as if Heller was Halle's brother ; it 
 is original without being odd, and we can wish the author 
 few better pleasures than hearing it played by his friend. 
 The pieces from Chopin were finely chosen, full of the 
 subtlety, the quick life, the intense subjectivity of this 
 supersubtle, supersensitive, great and odd genius, whom 
 we would think as difficult and deserving of translation 
 as the unique Jean Paul, who needs a language for him- 
 self. 
 
 This over, the delighted audience, like children only 
 half full of pleasure, and asking for more, could not 
 let their friend go without another last, and he gave 
 the beautiful, lively, and most picturesque " Spinning 
 Wheel," by Heller, the young maiden singing to herself 
 
 and her wheel. 
 
 
 
 So ended this enjoyable concert, and so ends our 
 rhapsody.
 
 328 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 1 
 
 March 12, 1863. 
 
 WE owe some amends to this excellent book to its 
 sensible and genial author and to the shrewd and 
 sturdy auld-farrant little capital of the Upper Ward, for 
 having been so long in noticing " Biggar and the House 
 of Fleming." 
 
 Biggar deserved a book to herself, and has now got it, 
 and a good and a big one too, and a publisher of her 
 own a book written not like an article for a gazetteer, 
 in the dull, plodding style, but as a work proper to it- 
 self, and having at the same time reference to the rest 
 of Scotland and its history mainly as " adjacent," in the 
 sense of the good old Greater and Lesser Cumbray 
 story. To Biggar people, Biggar is the centre of the 
 world ; and this book is written by a Biggar man, and 
 mainly for those who are or have been "callants " there, 
 and to whom the memories of the Corse Knows and of 
 Daft Jenny, Johnny Minto, The West Raic, Sow's Well, 
 and the Cadger's Brig are sacred. But with all this 
 with the local coloring strong and keen the book is 
 good general reading, the work of a thinking, judging, 
 well-knowledged, well-languaged man, who could write 
 as well on many a wider subject. It is not a book to 
 analyze ; but we can assure our readers that, though 
 they never saw Tinto, Coulter, Fell, Cardon, or Bizzy- 
 berry, and never even heard the ancient joke, that 
 
 1 Biggar and the House of Fleming ; an account of the Biggar dis- 
 trict, Archaeological, Historical, and Biographical. By William Hunter 
 Biggar : David Lockhart.
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 329 
 
 " London 's big, but Biggar 's bigger," they will find 
 much diversion, and not a little instruction, in this vol- 
 ume, especially under the chapters " Pre-historic Re- 
 mains," " Biggar a Burgh of Barony," " The Romans 
 in the Upper Ward ; " Its Witches, Vagrants, and Crimes ; 
 and, not the least curious, " The Battle of Biggar," in 
 which the question is ably and entertainingly handled 
 Was Blind Harry right in asserting, in " Ye Actis 
 and Deidis of ye illuster and vailyand Campioun, Shyr 
 William Wallace, knicht of Elrisle," that Sir William 
 and his friend, Sir John Tin to, gave battle to and de- 
 feated Edward I. and Sir Aylnier de Vallance, to east of 
 Biggar, on Guiklie's Oxgait and the Stanehead, past 
 which runs the little burn, the Red Syke, which, of 
 course, all Biggar, past, present, and to come, held, 
 holds, and will forever hold, to be proof positive of the 
 battle, as it ran of blood for days after? But, seriously, 
 this battle of Biggar is worthy of the attention of these 
 mighty expiscators and exploders of myths, Sir George 
 C. Lewis, and our own inevitable Burton. Let them 
 clear up it and the Wigtown martyrs. We shall now 
 give " a wheen swatches " of this goodly volume : 
 
 "GIEIN' HIMSEL' A FLEG." 
 
 John Brown the fiddler, full of genius and music, and 
 also too frequently fou in the other sense, playing at the 
 fairs, penny-weddings, and dancing-schools, and leading 
 a wild throughother life, had been up all night fiddling 
 and drinking at Broughton fair. He had seen his " nee- 
 bors " all asleep, or prostrate, and betook himself in the 
 cool, sober light of the morning, to the road. He was 
 seized when near Heavyside, with sudden qualms in the
 
 330 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 interior, and thought his end was come. Being a Cal- 
 vinist as well as a fiddler and toper, he had sundry aw- 
 ful reflections on this subject ; and to indulge them more 
 fully, he sat down at the roadside, expecting every mo- 
 ment the final summons. After waiting and wondering, 
 John got up with much alacrity, saying, " If I maun 
 dee, I may as well dee gaun as sittin'," an$ made victo- 
 riously for Biggar. Here is a good bit on the same 
 drouthy genius : " On another occasion, after indulg- 
 ing in a round of rather hard drinking, he fell into the 
 horrors. He viewed his conduct with anything but com- 
 placency. He considered that a feeling of sorrow and 
 regret was not a sufficient atonement for his delinquen- 
 cies, but that he was fairly entitled to receive some per- 
 sonal chastisement. Laboring under this impression, he 
 went forthwith to the late Mr. James Paterson, com- 
 monly called ' Oggie,' from having lived with his father 
 on the farm of Oggscastle, near Carnwath. Having 
 found him, he said, 'Jeames, I maun hae the len o' a 
 gun frae ye this morn in' ; I 'm gaun to tak' a bit daun- 
 der doon the length o' Bogha' castle.' 'The len o' a 
 gun, John ! ' said James ; ' that 's strynge. What on 
 earth are ye gaun to dae wi' a gun ? Ye dinna mean to 
 shute yersel' ? ' ' No exactly that, Jeames,' said John, 
 ' but of coorse I mean to gie mysel' a deevil o' a fleg.' " 
 
 BIGGAR AS A MEDICAL SCHOOL. 
 
 " Biggar, from a remote period, has had a staff of 
 medical men. So early as the fourteenth century, men- 
 tion is made, in a charter, of Simon the physician of 
 Biggar. We know very little regarding the Biggar 
 doctors, however, prior to the beginning of last century
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 331 
 
 At that time Andrew Aikman flourished as a surgeon in 
 Biggar. The earliest notice that we have of him is on 
 the 28th June 1720, when he and James Thypland were 
 brought before the Bailie's Court, and fined ' in the 
 soume of fyve punds Scots to the fiscall,' for having, in 
 the course of casting peats in Biggar Moss, encroached 
 on their neighbor's room. In 1723, he and his family 
 appear to have been greatly annoyed by William Lid- 
 dell, a horse-couper, one of those restless and outrageous 
 individuals who give their neighbors and the powers 
 that be a great amount of trouble. He therefore ar- 
 raigned him before the Bailie's Court, and Luke Val- 
 lange, the presiding magistrate, condemned him, under a 
 penalty of ' fyve hundred merks Scots,' to keep the 
 doctor, and his wife, bairns, family, and others, harm- 
 less and skeathless, in their bodyes, lives, goods, and 
 geir, and not to molest him nor his in any sort, directly 
 or indirectly, in tyme coming. 
 
 " Doctors William Baillie and William Boe were dis- 
 tinguished physicians at Biggar during a considerable 
 part of last century. Biggar, during the time they 
 flourished, acquired some celebrity as a medical school. 
 It was a common practice at that time for young men 
 who wished to acquire a knowledge of the medical art, 
 to serve an apprenticeship to some eminent practitioner. 
 The fame of these two Biggar worthies drew round 
 them many young men, some of whom distinguished 
 themselves in their profession in after years. We may 
 specially refer to Dr. Robert Jackson, the well-known 
 army medical reformer."
 
 332 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 ROBERT FORSYTH, ADVOCATE. 
 
 The following notice of this strong -brained man 
 whose huge frame and head were well known twenty 
 years ago in the Parliament House, where he invariably 
 appeared at 9 A. M., nobody ever being before him, is 
 characteristic of the times and of the class out of which, 
 by his own native force, he so nobly raised himself. 
 
 " His father was Robert Forsyth, bellman and grave- 
 digger, to whom we have already referred ; and his 
 mother's name was Marion Pairman. This worthy 
 couple were united in marriage in 1764, and their only 
 child. Robert, was born on the 18th of January 1766. 
 Their condition in life was very humble, and they had 
 to struggle with all the disadvantages and sorrows of 
 extreme poverty ; but they resolved to give their son, 
 who early showed an aptitude for learning, a good edu- 
 cation in order to qualify him for the work of the min- 
 istry. He was sent early to the parish school, but being 
 the son of a poor man, he was treated with marked 
 neglect and made small progress. He soon, however, 
 became extremely fond of reading. He borrowed such 
 books as his neighbors could supply, and read them in 
 the winter nights to his parents, to Robert Rennie, shoe- 
 maker, and others, who commended him highly for his 
 industry and ability, and thus encouraged him to renewed 
 exertions. In this way he became acquainted with such 
 works as ' The History of the Devil,' ' Satan's Invisible 
 World Discovered,' the Histories of Knox, Crookshank, 
 and Josephus, Ross's ' View of all Religions,' the poems 
 of Butler, Young, Milton, Ramsay, Pennecuik, and Sir 
 David Lindsay. It is remembered at Biggar, that one
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 333 
 
 evening he was busily engaged in reading aloud the 
 poems of Sir David Lindsay, by the blaze of a piece of 
 Auchenheath coal, after his mother had gone to bed, 
 when that worthy matron said, ' O Robie man, steek the 
 boords o' Davie Lindsay, and gie 's a blad o' the chapter 
 buik (the Bible), or I'll no fa' asleep the nicht.' 
 
 "As he made slow progress in his classical studies at 
 the parish school of Biggar, he was sent in his twelfth 
 or thirteenth year to the burgh school of Lanark, then 
 taught by Mr. Robert Thomson, a brother-in-law of the 
 author of the ' Seasons.' Here he made more advance- 
 ment in a few months than he had done for years previ- 
 ously. When attending this seminary, he returned to 
 Biggar every Saturday, and remained till Monday. His 
 aged grandmother was wont to ' hirple ' out the Lind- 
 saylands road to meet him on his way home ; but young 
 Forsyth sometimes spent a few hours in climbing trees 
 at Carmichael, or looking for birds'-nests at Thankerton, 
 and this sorely tried the patience of the old dame as she 
 sat by the wayside chafing at his delay, and longing for 
 his return. 
 
 " Forsyth then studied four years at the University 
 of Glasgow, and manfully struggled with all the obstruc- 
 tions arising from the res anyusta domi. During one of 
 these years, a severe and protracted storm of frost and 
 snow occurred, and prevented all communication from 
 place to place by means of carts. The Biggar carrier 
 was consequently unable to pay his usual visits to Glas- 
 gow for several weeks. Old Forsyth was thrown into 
 great distress regarding the state in which he knew his 
 son would be placed from want of his ordinary supply 
 of provisions. He therefore procured a quantity of oat- 
 meal, and carried it on his back along the rough tracks
 
 334 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 on the top of the snow all the way to Glasgow, a dis- 
 tance of thirty-five miles, and just arrived when young 
 Forsyth had been reduced to his last meal." 
 
 He studied for the Church, but having no interest, 
 though an eloquent preacher, and having then, perhaps, 
 no great belief in what he preached, he gave up the 
 ministry and took to the bar. 
 
 " At that time the men of the Parliament House were 
 more exclusive than they are at present. They cared 
 little for a new adherent to their ranks unless he came 
 recommended by his connection with some aristocratic 
 family. The idea of a sticket minister, and the son of a 
 grave-digger, obtaining admission into their dignified or- 
 der, was intolerable to the Dundases, the Forbeses, the 
 Wedderburus, the Erskines, and others, who in those 
 days ruled the roast in the Parliament House. One of 
 their number connected with the Biggar district, but 
 never distinguished for obtaining any great amount of 
 practice, was specially opposed to Forsyth, and one day 
 had the audacity to say, ' Who are you, sir, that would 
 thrust yourself into the Faculty ? Are ye not the poor 
 bellman's son of Biggar?' 'I am so,' said Forsyth 
 coolly, but sarcastically, ' and I have a strong suspicion 
 that, had you been a bellman's son you would have 
 been your father's successor.' " 
 
 MART TOUSTON AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 " William Baillie's (the tinker's) wife, Mary Youston, 
 was also a remarkable character. In height she was 
 nearly six feet, her eyes were dark and penetrating, her 
 face was much marked with the smallpox, and her ap- 
 pearance was fierce and commanding. She was even
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 335 
 
 more dreaded than her husband, as she was more auda- 
 cious and unscrupulous. Few persons cared to give her 
 offence, because, if they did, they were sure in the end 
 to suffer some loss or injury. ' It is like Mary Yous- 
 ton's awmous, gien mair for her ill than for her guid.' 
 She was, like her husband, a dexterous thief and pick- 
 pocket, so that it was a common observation regarding 
 her, ' Whip her up Biggar street on a market day, wi' 
 a man at ilka oxter, and she would steal a purse ere 
 they got her to the head o 't.' Many stories of her say- 
 ings and exploits were at one time prevalent among the 
 peasantry of the Biggar district. We give a specimen 
 or two. One day Mary arrived at the village of Than- 
 kerton, with several juveniles, who were usually trans- 
 ported from place to place in the panniers of the cud- 
 dies. She commenced hawking her commodities amongst 
 the inhabitants, when some of the children of the village 
 came into the house where she was, and cried, ' Mary, 
 your weans are stealing the eggs out of the hen's nest.' 
 Mary quite exultingly exclaimed, ' The Lord be praised ! 
 I am glad to hear that the bairns are beginning to show 
 some signs o' thrift' " 
 
 " LANGLEATHERS. 
 
 " John Thomson, commonly called ' Langleathers,' was 
 a person of great strength, and carried a budget of old 
 iron implements and other articles on his back that few 
 persons could lift. He was decidedly fatuous ; and the 
 report was that he had received such a shock on witness- 
 ing the destruction of the city of' Lisbon by an earth- 
 quake in 1755, that he never again entirely recovered 
 his reason. He used, in his contemplative moods, often
 
 336 BIGGAR AXD THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 to mutter to himself, ' I saw a city sunk.' He was in- 
 offensive, except when roused by the annoyances and 
 tricks of mischievous boys. He then became exceedingly 
 noisy and outrageous ; and, being a dexterous ' hencher ' 
 of stones, it required great nimbleuess on the part of the 
 youthful tormentors to avoid his aim. When we hap- 
 pened to be at Biggar on Sabbath, the boys and he 
 were sure to come into collision, and then a great deal 
 of noise and disturbance was the consequence. He had 
 rather a fondness for these encounters, and was not 
 easily prevailed on to give them up. When any person 
 remonstrated with him, and said that he ought to pay 
 more respect to the Sabbath, ' Weel, weel, then,' said 
 Jock, 'I'll aff to Crawfordjohn; there's nae Sabbath 
 there.' " 
 
 Jock Robertson, a clever ne'er-do-weel, who had been 
 at Glasgow College with Campbell the poet, long haunted 
 the Upper Ward, getting his bed, his supper, and his 
 dram at the farm " touns " for his tricks and his fortune- 
 telling, of which he thus gives the rationale: GOOD 
 PHILOSOPHY. " Such is the propensity of human na- 
 ture to pry into futurity, that I am very successful as a 
 spaeman ; and as I take no money, I am less apt to be 
 committed as a vagrant. I can hide my tongue in such 
 a manner that it cannot be observed ; and though I am 
 dumb, I am not deaf ; I hear in one house what is going 
 on in another, and can easily make a tolerable history. 
 I first kneel down on the floor, then draw a magic circle 
 with my chalk ; next I write the initials, J. S., which 
 will serve for John Smith, James Sommerville, Joseph 
 Sym, Jacob Simpson, and a thousand more. On seeing 
 the initials, a girl perhaps whispers, ' I '11 wager that 's 
 our Johnnie that 's at the sea.' Having found a clew
 
 BIGGAB AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 337 
 
 I draw a ship, and write Mediterranean, or whatever can 
 be elicited from the tattle of the maidens. If, on in- 
 specting the initials, they look grave, or give a hint 
 about death, I draw a coffin ; but if the initials do not 
 suit any absent friend of the parties, I make them a 
 sentence, 'I say,' and follow it up with a new set of 
 letters till I can fabricate a story." 
 
 About a hundred years ago an old man, Adam Thom- 
 son, who made and sold heather besoms, and " ranges," 
 and " basses," mats of straw or rushes, " threshes," 
 as they are called in that broad tongue which rejoices in 
 Haup for Hope and Wull for Will lived in a lonely 
 cottage in the bleak muirland between Biggar and Carn- 
 wath. One night in midsummer when they were all in 
 bed, Thomson, who had gone to the door to answer a 
 loud knocking, was brutally murdered, his wife mal- 
 treated, and the house robbed : 
 
 " Great efforts, by offering rewards, and otherwise, 
 were made to discover the perpetrators of this foul out- 
 rage. Several persons were apprehended on suspicion, 
 and all manner of reports were put in circulation ; but 
 no satisfactory discovery was made, and most persons 
 began to consider that further search was hopeless. 
 
 " Adam Thomson, a son of the deceased, a man of 
 strange notions and eccentric habits, and then school- 
 master of the parish of Walston, after pondering for a 
 long time over the mysterious death of his father, re- 
 solved to make personal efforts to discover the murder- 
 ers. From time to time, so often as his vocation would 
 permit, he left his native locality, and travelled over the 
 greater part of Scotland and England, making minute 
 inquiries after suspicious characters, visiting jails, and 
 mixing with thieves, tinkers, and vagabonds of all sorts. 
 22
 
 BIG GAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 Again and again he returned home baffled and disap- 
 pointed. One evening as he lay in bed ruminating on 
 the painful subject which had taken so firm a hold of 
 his mind, he felt a strong and irresistible impulse once 
 more to renew his search. He rose early next morning, 
 and wended his way to Jedburgh, where, as was his 
 wont, he repaired to the To! booth. Here he made the 
 usual inquiries at the prisoners, if any of them knew the 
 perpetrators of his father's murder, and it is understood 
 that he obtained such information as enabled him to 
 take effectual steps to apprehend them and bring them 
 to justice. It was thus ascertained that the murder was 
 committed by two men, John Brown and James Wilson, 
 and two women, Martha Wilson and Janet Greig. At 
 what place James Wilson was apprehended we have not 
 ascertained ; but John Brown was captured in a house 
 near the Fort of Inversnaid, by a party of soldiers from 
 the garrison, on Sabbath, the 3d January 1773, and 
 conducted first to Stirling and then to Edinburgh. As 
 no person had seen them commit the act, it would have 
 been difficult to obtain a conviction against them ; but 
 the two women basely agreed to turn king's evidence. 
 The trial of the two men was fixed to take place on the 
 28th June; but it was potsponed till the 12th August, 
 on the plea that at least one of the panels could bring 
 evidence to prove an alibi. The individual who at 
 length came forward and made this attempt was a per- 
 son of their own kidney, called William Robertson ; but 
 his statements were so inconsistent and contradictory 
 that the Court committed him to prison. The jury unan- 
 imously found the prisoners guilty ; and the sentence 
 pronounced upon them was, that they should be executed 
 in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 1 oth
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 339 
 
 September, and their bodies given to Dr. Monro for dis- 
 section. 
 
 " The execution of Brown and Wilson took place on 
 the day appointed ; and Adam Thomson, it is said, ap- 
 peared with them on the scaffold and offered up a solemn 
 prayer, an exercise of which he was very fond, and in 
 which, it is allowed, he greatly excelled. On his return 
 home, he erected a stone at the grave of his father in 
 Carnwath churchyard, with an inscription in Latin. It 
 was long an object of attraction, and was visited by 
 many persons at a distance who had heard the story of 
 the murder, the extraordinary efforts made by young 
 Thomson to discover the perpetrators of it, and the sin- 
 gular epitaph which he had composed. A relative of 
 Thomson, some years ago, removed the stone to the 
 neighboring churchyard of Libberton, and there barbar- 
 ously caused the inscription to be defaced or erased, and 
 another one, regarding his own immediate relations, to 
 be put i'n its place. So far as can be remembered the 
 inscription ran as follows: 
 
 " ' Hie jacet Adamus Thomson, qui xv. ante Cal. 
 Julii 1771, cruentis manibus, Joannis Brown, Jacobi 
 Wilson, et duarum feminarum, apud Nigram Legem, 
 ^rope Novam JEdificationem, crudelissime trucidatus 
 erat. Illi, Adamo Thomson, defuncti filio et ludimagis- 
 tro de Walston, detecti erant. Ob quod crimen nefan- 
 durn, Brown et Wilson, capitis damnati, et xvii. Cal. 
 Oct. 1773, suspensi erant. 
 
 " ' Hoc monumentum extructum fuit Adamo Thom- 
 son, rectore Academic de Walston.' 
 
 " The late Rev. William Meek of Dunsyre was wont 
 to quote the above inscription as a curious sample of the 
 Latinity of the dominies of the Upper Ward, putting
 
 340 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 special emphasis on the rendering of Blacklaw, near 
 Newbigging, by ' Nigram Legem, prope Novam JEdifi- 
 cationem,' and the fine conceit of Thomson in styling 
 himself ' ludimagister ' and ' rector ' of the Academy of 
 Walston." 
 
 Adam Thomson tracking his father's murderers like a 
 sleuth-hound, and then offering up a solemn prayer 
 " an exercise of which he was very fond " at their 
 gallows, is worthy of Matthew Wald and that fell shoe- 
 maker M'Ewan, whose predestinarian meditations on 
 the sands at Lamlash, none who have read Lockhart's 
 intense novel are likely to forget. 
 
 And now for a bit of the comic. Robert Forsyth, the 
 father of the advocate, and himself grave-digger, bell- 
 man, and minister's man, was asked by his master, who 
 was knowing in pigs, to take one of a very fine litter 
 to his friend, the then minister of Dolphinton. Rob 
 was told to be sure to inform the receiver of every- 
 thing about its "blood, and culture" not only who its 
 father and mother, but who its forebears generally were. 
 " And ye see, Rab, be shure ye tell this afore ye let it 
 oot, for he '11 never heed a word ye say after that for 
 glowerin' at its perfections." So off Rob trudged with 
 his pock and its high-bred burden. When he came to 
 Candy Burn, a little way out of Biggar, where a dram 
 was then sold, he met Richie Robb, a humorist and wag, 
 who, seeing the bedral, says, " Whaur are ye gaun?" 
 "Oo, I'm gaun to Dowfintoun, wi' joost the wunner- 
 fust pig ever was piggit ; it 's for the minister." " Ay, 
 man ! Come yer ways in and tak a dram, and let 's see 
 the pig." The pig was seen and admired, and then the 
 dram and a crack. Meantime, Richie takes out the pig 
 and puts in a young puppy-dog about the same weight,
 
 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 341 
 
 jtnd Robbie trudges off, arriving in the afternoon at the 
 manse of Dolphinton. The minister was out looking 
 about him, and knew Rob. " What 's this in the pock, 
 Robbie, my man ? " " Ay, ye may well speir, Mr. 
 Meek. It 's joost the maist extraordnar pig ever was. 
 M} 7 maister has sent it as a parteekler present to you, 
 wi' his compliments." " Let us see 't, Robbie." " Na, 
 na, sir, I maun first put ye up to its generation, sae to 
 speak." He then detailed its antecedents, and let it 
 solemnly escape at the corner. Out came the puppy, 
 winking and lively. " That 's a dowg, Robbie ! " says 
 the minister. " A dowg ! a dowg ! as shure 's daith it 
 is a dowg; it was as shure, Mr. Meek as fac's daith 
 it was a pig when it gaed in ! " " Weel, Robbie, it's 
 a dowg noo, so you may tak' it back. But come in and 
 hae yer four oors." Robbie took a fearful look at the 
 beast, returned it with much subdued blasphemy, aston- 
 ishment, and cruelty to the pock, and, making a hearty 
 meal, started again, giving a skeptical keek into the 
 pock every now and then on his way when he thought 
 nobody saw him, to see what further change was going 
 on. He arrived once more, disgusted, bewildered, and 
 weary, at Candy Burn, where, of course, Richie was 
 waiting for him. " Ye 've been lang, Robbie, and what 
 for are ye carryin' the pock ower yer shouther ? " Rob- 
 bie gave a grunt of disgust, and told his story. "That's 
 awfu', Robbie, perfectly fearsome ; ye maun stap in and 
 hae a dram. Oo maun tell Tibbie." Rob flung down 
 his pock with its portentous contents which gave an 
 unmistakable yowl and took his dram and told his 
 woes. Of course Richie transposed the pig once more, 
 and on went Rob, heartened by drink a little, but full of 
 alarm as to his master, who met him at the door eager
 
 342 BIGGAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 
 
 to know what his friend thought of the pig. Robbie 
 flung down his pock with a desperate air, took his stand, 
 and, rubbing his forehead, poured out the prodigious 
 story "A whaulp, an absolute whaulp, as ye may see, 
 sir, wi' yer ain een." Opening the pock and giving it a 
 vindictive kick, out came the pig of the morning ! " As 
 fac 's death, Mr. Watson, it was a whaulp at Dowfinton, 
 and I lookit in noos and thans to see if it was turnm' 
 into ony thing else ; and it was a whaulp at Candy Burn, 
 and that Richie Robb can aver and sweer." " Xae doot, 
 Robbie, Richie kens a' aboot it," said the more knowing 
 minister. In its own small way, this is as good a joke as 
 any since Boccaccio. What a finished personation Mat- 
 thews or Sir William Allan would have made, and Mac- 
 nee or Peter Fraser would make of it ! There was 
 " Ah for the change 'twixt now and then ! " an institu- 
 tion in Biggar as peculiar to it as is the Godiva proces- 
 sion to Coventry, the " Hurley-hacket ! " It has ceased 
 forever, because its possibility is no more. Forty years 
 ago, the Corse Knowe, or Cross Hill, was as essential a 
 feature in Biggar as St. Paul's in London, St. Rcgulus' 
 Tower at St. Andrews, the Campanile in Venice, or our 
 own Castle here. Biggar is no more Biggar as it was 
 than the Apollo would be himself without his nose. 
 This hiowe was in the centre of the town, and middle 
 of the street, and the market cross was on its top ; and 
 when there was a hard frost, it was the pleasure of the 
 entire town, young and old, to go mad, and take to hurl- 
 ing themselves down the frozen slopes, " keepin' the pud- 
 din' het " in an astonishing way. As were the Saturna- 
 lia to old, and the Carnival to present Rome, so was this 
 short insanity to the staid town its consummation be- 
 ing the Hurley-hacket, a sort of express train, headed by
 
 BIG GAR AND THE HOUSE OF FLEMING. 343 
 
 one or two first-raters, " perfect deevils," who could de- 
 scend the steep standing, like Hamlet in "To be oi^not 
 to be," calm, and with their arms crossed, and their feet 
 close heel-and-toe, shod with iron ; one fellow he was 
 afterwards hanged was generally the leader, straight 
 as an arrow shooting the rapids, and yielding, like a con- 
 summate rider, to the perilous ups and down ; behind 
 him came the lads and lasses, scudding on their hunkers ; 
 then their elders on their creepies, turned upside down, 
 and then the ruck. Away it swept, yelling and sway- 
 ing to-and-fro, like a huge dragon, lithe and supple 
 " swingeing the horror " of its multitudinous tail down 
 across the street, heedless of everything, running, it 
 may be, right into Mr. Pairman's shop, or down on the 
 other side into William Johnstone's byre, and past the tail 
 of his utmost coo. Then the confusion and scrimmage, 
 and doubling of everybody up at the ending ! that was 
 the glory, like emptying an express train into a " free 
 tooni." All this is gone, the Corse Knowe is levelled, 
 the Hurley-hacket is unknown, no longer flames down 
 the steep with half the town, and it may be the minister 
 and the dominie secretly at its tail, with a fragment of a 
 tar barrel flourishing and blazing at its head. It was 
 worthy of the pen of him who sang of Anster Fair. 
 The old Biggar callauts may say, with their native poet 
 Robert Rae 
 
 " Syne fancy leads me back to some 
 Tremendous Hurley-hacket row, 
 When ' Roarin' Billie,' langsyne dumb, 
 
 Gaed thunderin' doon the auld Corse Knowe." 
 
 "London's big, but Biggar 's Biggar." Joke of the 
 Distri f .
 
 SIR HENRY EAEBURN.
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 1 
 
 JIR HENRY RAEBURN" is the greatest of 
 j Scottish portrait- painters. Others may have 
 painted one or more as excellent portraits : we 
 have Sir George Harvey's Mrs. Horn a veritable 
 Mater Scotorum and his Professor Wilson, and my 
 father, the property of Mrs. Jas. Crum ; Duncan's Dr. 
 Chalmers and his magical likeness of himself; Geddes's 
 Wilkie, so finely engraved in brown by Ward, also his 
 old "Sicily" Brydone reclining on his sofa an ex- 
 quisite piece and his own "couthy" old mother; the 
 Provost of Peterhead by Sir John Watson Gordon ; 
 " The Man of Feeling " by Colvin Smith ; and Dr. 
 Wardlaw by Macnee ; 2 but none of these have given to 
 the world such a profusion of masterpieces. Indeed, Sir 
 Henry's name may stand with those of the world's great- 
 est men in this department of Art Titian and Tinto- 
 retto, Vandyck and Rubens, Velasquez and Rembrandt, 
 
 1 Prefixed to a volume of "Portraits of Sir Henry Raeburn." Folio. 
 Edin. 1874. 
 
 2 I had just come from this excellent man's burial when the proof 
 of this came in. He was a good painter, a great humorist, an incom- 
 parable raconteur, and a most lovable man as unaffected as when 
 I saw him fifty and more years agj, or as his own Touch Hills ; and 
 whoever saw and heard "The hat," or "The gamekeeper's ghost 
 Btory," or his tremendous " Sam Bough's railway journey to Port- 
 Glasgow," and indeed any of his perfect stories, can ever forget or tell 
 them ? it is a lost delight and wonder. [Jan. 21, 1882.]
 
 348 SIR HEXRY RAEBURN. 
 
 Sir Joshua, Gainsborough, and Hogarth (witness his 
 Captain Coram). There is a breadth and manliness, a 
 strength and felicity of likeness and of character, and a 
 simplicity and honesty of treatment, which are found 
 only in men of primary genius. 
 
 Of the great masters of portraiture, Velasquez is the 
 one whom Raeburn most resembles. Wilkie, a first- 
 rate Art critic, writing from Madrid, where one must 
 go to feel the full power of the great Spaniard, says, 
 "There is much resemblance between him and the 
 works of some of the chiefs of the English school ; but 
 of all, Raeburn resembles him most, in whose square 
 touch in heads, hands, and accessories I. see the very 
 counterpart in Velasquez." Nothing can be happier than 
 the expression " square touch " as characteristic of the 
 handling of both, and with Raeburn it must have been 
 like-mindedness, not imitation, as there is no reason to 
 think he saw almost any of the works of this great 
 master. 
 
 Raeburn stands nearly alone among the great portrait- 
 painters, in having never painted anything else. This 
 does not. prove that he was without the ideal faculty. Xo 
 man can excel as a portrait-painter no man can make 
 the soul look out from a face who wants it. Richmond 
 pleasantly put it, and truly, to Professor Syme, when 
 he first showed him the drawing of himself, well known 
 by Holl's engraving ; the great surgeon, after scrutiniz- 
 ing it with his keen and honest eyes, exclaimed, laugh- 
 ing, " Yes, it is like ; but then it is good-looking ! " 
 " Ah ! you see," said the artist, " we do it lovingly." 
 The best likeness of a man should be the ideal of him 
 realized. As Coleridge used to say, "A great portrait 
 should be liker than its original;" it should contain
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURX. 349 
 
 more of the best, more of the essence of the man than 
 ever was in any one living look. In these two qualities 
 Raeburn always is strong ; he never fails in giving a 
 likeness at once vivid, unmistakable, and pleasing. He 
 paints the truth, and he paints it in love. 
 
 This eminent Scotsman was born in Stockbridge, on 
 the Water of Leith now a part of Edinburgh on 
 the 4th of March 1756. His ancestors were of the 
 sturdy Border stock reiving, pastoral lairds and 
 probably took their name from Raeburn, a hill-farm in 
 Annandale still held by Sir Walter Scott's kinsfolk. 1 
 Raeburn was left an orphan at six, and was educated in 
 Heriot's Hospital or " Wark," as it was called. He is 
 one of the curiously few of those brought up in this 
 Scottish Christ's Hospital who became distinguished in 
 after life a contrast to the scholars of the great Lon- 
 don School. At fifteen he was apprenticed to a gold- 
 smith. He early showed his turn for Art. He carica- 
 tured his comrades, and by and by, without any teaching, 
 made beautiful miniatures of his friends. After his time 
 was out, he set himself entirely to portrait-painting, 
 giving np miniature, and passing from its delicacies and 
 minuteness at once to his bold " square touch " in oil. 
 He had to teach himself everything, drawing, the 
 composition of colors, in which doubtless he employed 
 largely Opie's well-known mixture, " With Brains, Sir." 
 About this time the young Herioter became acquainted 
 with the famous cynic, lawyer, and wit, John Clerk, 
 afterwards Lord Eldin, then a young advocate, fond of 
 pictures and of painting, in which he had some of that 
 
 1 His grandson tells me that Sir Henry used to say he was a Raeburn 
 of that Ilk his forebears having had it before the Scotts, whose it ia 
 now. His crest is a Rae or Roe deer.
 
 350 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 family gift which, in the case of Mrs. Blackburn, has 
 blossomed out into such rare and exquisite work. Allan 
 Cunningham tells a good story of this time. Both were 
 then poor. Young Clerk asked Raeburn to dine at his 
 lodgings. Coming in, he found the landlady laying the 
 cloth and setting down two dishes, one containing three 
 herrings, and tne other three potatoes. " Is this a' ? " 
 said John. "Ay, it's a'!" "AM didn't I tell ye, 
 wummau, that a gentleman is to dine wi' me, and that 
 ye were to get six herrin' and six potatoes ? " 
 
 When twenty-two, the following romantic incident, as 
 told by Allan Cunningham, occurred: "One day a 
 young lady presented herself at his studio, and desired 
 to sit for her portrait ; he instantly remembered having 
 seen her in some of his excursions, when, with his 
 sketch-book in his hand, he was noting down fine snatches 
 of scenery ; and as the appearance of anything living 
 and lovely gives an additional charm to a landscape, the 
 painter, like Gainsborough in similar circumstances, had 
 admitted her readily into his drawing." He found that 
 she had, besides beauty, sensibility and wit he fell in 
 love with his sitter, and made a very fine portrait, now 
 at Charlesfield. The lady, Ann Edgar, daughter of the 
 Laird of Bridgelands, became in a mouth after this his 
 wife, bringing him a good fortune, good sense, and an 
 affectionate heart. He now resolved to visit London 
 and improve himself in his art. He was introduced to 
 Sir Joshua, and often told how the great painter coun- 
 selled him to go to Rome and worship Michael Angelo in 
 the Sistine Chapel, and study his " terribile via" and how 
 in parting he said, " Young man, I know nothing of 
 your circumstances young painters are seldom rich 
 but if money be necessary for your studies abroad, say
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 351 
 
 so, and you shall not want it." There is little record of 
 his life at Rome. Byres, Barry's antagonist, gave him 
 an advice he ever after followed, and often spoke of: 
 " Never paint any object from memory, if you can get 
 it before your eyes." 
 
 From his return to Edinburgh until his death his life 
 was busy, happy, and victorious. Full of work, eager, 
 hospitable, faithful in his friendships, homely in his hab- 
 its, he was one of the best-liked men of his time. The 
 following is Cunningham's account of him : " Though 
 his painting-rooms were in York Place, his dwelling- 
 house was at St. Bernard's, near Stockbridge, overlook- 
 ing the water of Leith a romantic place. The steep 
 banks were then* finely wooded ; the garden grounds 
 varied and beautiful ; and all the seclusion of the coun- 
 try could be enjoyed, without the remoteness. The mo- 
 tions of the artist were as regular as those of a clock. 
 He rose at seven during summer, took breakfast about 
 eight with his wife and children, walked up to his great 
 room in 32 York Place, now occupied by Colvin Smith, 
 R. S. A., and was ready for a sitter by nine ; and of 
 sitters he generally had, for many years, not fewer than 
 three or four a day. To these he gave an hour and a 
 half each. He seldom kept a sitter more than two 
 hours ; unless the person happened and that was 
 often the case to be gifted with more than common 
 talents. He then felt himself happy, and never failed 
 to detain the party till the arrival of a new sitter inti- 
 mated that he must be gone. For a head size he gener- 
 ally required four or five sittings, and he preferred paint- 
 ing the head and hands to any other part of the body : 
 assigning as a reason that they required least considera- 
 tion. A fold of drapery, or the natural ease which the
 
 352 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 casting of a mantle over the shoulder demanded, occa* 
 sioued him more perplexing study than a head full of 
 thought and imagination. Such was the intuition with 
 which he penetrated at once to the mind, that the first 
 sitting rarely came to a close without his having seized 
 strongly on the character and disposition of the individ- 
 ual. He never drew in his heads, or indeed any part of 
 the body, with chalk, a system pursued successfully 
 by Lawrence ; but began with the brush at once. The 
 forehead, chin, nose, and mouth were his first touches. 
 He always painted standing, and never used a stick for 
 resting his hand on ; for such was his accuracy of eye, 
 and steadiness of nerve, that he could introduce the most 
 delicate touches, or the utmost mechanical regularity of 
 line, without aid, or other contrivance than fair off-hand 
 dexterity. He remained in his painting-room till a little 
 after five o'clock, when he walked home, and dined at 
 six." 
 
 One of his sitters thus describes him : " He spoke 
 a few words to me in his usual brief and kindly way 
 evidently to put me into an agreeable mood ; and then, 
 having placed me in a chair on a platform at the end of 
 his painting-room, in the posture required, set up his 
 easel beside me, with the canvas ready to receive the 
 color. When he saw all was right, he took his palette 
 and his brush, retreated back step by step, with his face 
 towards me, till he was nigh the other end of his room ; 
 he stood and studied for a minute more, then came up 
 to the canvas, and, without looking at me, wrought upon 
 it with color for some time. Having done this, he re- 
 treated in the same manner, studied my looks at that 
 distance for about another minute, then came hastily up 
 to the canvas and painted a few minutes more. I had
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 353 
 
 sat to other artists ; their way was quite different 
 they made an outline carefully in chalk, measured it 
 with compasses, placed the canvas close to me, and look- 
 ing me almost without ceasing in the face, proceeded to 
 fill up the outline with color. They succeeded best m 
 the minute detail Raeburn best in the general result 
 of the expression ; they obtained by means of a multi- 
 tude of little touches what he found by broader masses ; 
 they gave more of the man he gave most of the 
 mind." 
 
 " Like Sir Joshua, he placed his sitters on a high plat- 
 form, shortening the features, and giving a pigeon-hole 
 view of the nostrils. The notion is that people should be 
 painted as if they were hanging like pictures on the wall, 
 a Newgate notion, but it was Sir Joshua's. Raeburn and 
 I have had good-humored disputes about this : I appealed 
 to Titian, Vandyck, etc., for my authorities ; they always 
 painted people as if they were sitting opposite to them, 
 not on a mountebank stage, or dangling on the wall." 
 
 This great question we leave to be decided by those 
 who know best. His manner of taking his likenesses 
 explains the simplicity and power of his heads. Placing 
 his sitter on the pedestal, he looked at him from the 
 other end of a long room, gazing at him intently with 
 his great dark eyes. Having got the idea of the man, 
 what of him carried furthest and " told," he walked 
 hastily up to the canvas, never looking at his sitter, and 
 put down what he had fixed in his inner eye ; he then 
 withdrew again, took another gaze, and recorded its re- 
 sults, and so on, making no measurements. His hands 
 are admirably drawn, full of expression, and evidently 
 portraits. He was knighted by George the Fourth at 
 Hopetoun House, and made His Majesty's Limner for 
 23
 
 354 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 Scotland soon after. He was a Royal Academician for 
 some years before his death, and Member of the Acade- 
 mies of New York and South Carolina, as well as of 
 Florence and Athens. 
 
 Sir Henry* died, after a short illness, on the 8th of 
 July 1823, beloved and honored by all. 1 "Honest Al- 
 lan " sums up his personal character thus : " The 
 character of Raeburn appears to have been every way 
 unblemished ; he was a candid modest man, ever ready 
 to aid merit, and give a helping hand to genius in art. 
 His varied knowledge, his agreeable manners, his nu- 
 merous anecdotes, and his general conversation, at once 
 easy and unaffected, with now and then a touch of hu- 
 morous gayety, made him a delightful companion; he 
 told a Scotch story with almost unrivalled naivete of ef- 
 fect, and did the honors of a handsome house and ele- 
 gant table with all the grace of a high-bred gentleman. 
 Through life he discharged, with blameless attention, all 
 the duties of a good citizen. His pencil never kept him 
 from his place in church on Sunday, and in the days of 
 trouble he was a zealous volunteer. First and last, 
 among all the children of art no one was ever more 
 widely respected than Sir Henry Raeburn ; and his tall, 
 handsome figure, and fine open manly countenance, will 
 not be forgotten for many a day in ' the place which 
 knew him.' " 
 
 The remarkable collection of Photographs from Rae- 
 burn's Portraits now given in this volume, though want- 
 ing the charm of color, and most of them from engrav- 
 ings masterly indeed, but still inexpressive in some 
 
 l He is buried in the mortuary of St. John's, Edinburgh, but to oui 
 Jmme there is not a word to say where he lies.
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 355 
 
 degree of the full power and sweetness of the original 
 gives us a good sample of this great master's faculty of 
 rendering the human countenance. Judging from those 
 we know, we may say that the cardinal virtue of mak- 
 ing a strong, true likeness is preeminent in Raeburn's 
 work ; he seizes the essential features and expression, 
 which make the man to differ from all other men ; and 
 he gives the best of him. Take that of Dr. Nathaniel 
 Spens as a Royal Archer : we do not know a nobler 
 portrait ; look at his eye, at his firm legs, at his gloved 
 hands, at the cock of his bonnet. At his feet is a sturdy 
 Scotch thistle, bristling all over with Nemo me. This 
 great picture is done to the quick, tense with concen- 
 trated action, and that arrow, " shot by an archer 
 strong," you know the next instant will be off and home. 
 There is true genius here. This picture is now in 
 Archers' Hall; we grudge them it it should be seen 
 of all men. 
 
 There is Dr. Adam of the High School the perfec- 
 tion of a Rector firm, reasonable, loving. The hold- 
 ing out the hand to still the unseen boys brings to mind 
 that fine story of him when dying: lifting up his thin 
 hand he said " But it grows dark, boys ; you may go." 
 Then there is Scott, sitting on ruins, his dog Camp 
 the English bull-terrier on whose death-day he wrote 
 saying he could not dine out, because " a very dear 
 friend " had died at his feet ; the stern old keep of 
 Hermitage in the distance was there ever a more po- 
 etic picture of a poet? Look at his child-mouth his 
 rapt, brooding eyes, seeing things invisible, peopling the 
 past. Camp with his unreflex, animal eyes is looking 
 as only dogs look, into the visible and the near. What 
 cares he for knights of old and minstrelsy and gla-
 
 356 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 tnourye ? he is snuffing up some possible foumart, or, 
 watching the twinkling fud of a vanishing rabbit. The 
 replica of this portrait has in it two favorite greyhounds 
 of Sir Walter, a Douglas " and " Percy," and the Braes 
 of Yarrow for the background. 
 
 Then look at Sir Harry Moncreiff. What a thorough 
 gentleman what a broad, sunny-hearted Churchman ! 
 Look at the hands, how expressive ! Again, there 's 
 Professor Robison. Did you ever see a dressing-gown 
 so glorified? and the nightcap, and the look of steady 
 speculation in the eyes a philosopher all over. 
 
 John Tait and Grandson. Mr. Tait was grandfather 
 to the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and the little 
 mannie gazing at the watch is the present Sheriff of 
 Perthshire. 
 
 There is another of Scott quite different but very 
 fine the bluff, cordial man of the world with his 
 pleasant mouth that has a burr in it. This must have 
 been done in his prime. 
 
 Francis Horner gentle and immovable the Ten 
 Commandments written all over his face, as Sydney 
 Smith said. 
 
 John Clerk, his " herrin' " friend, ugly and snuffy, 
 shrewd and subtle; the crouching Venus among the 
 law-papers beautifully drawn indicating John's love 
 of Art 
 
 Archibald Constable, the handsome, buirdly book- 
 seller of genius, to whom the world owes more of its 
 enjoyment from Scott than it is aware of, and to whose 
 powers and worth and true place in the literature of this 
 century, his son, I rejoice to see, has done a long-delayed 
 act of justice and of filial affection, and done it well. 
 
 Lord Newton, full-blooded, full-brained, taurine with
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 357 
 
 potential vigor. His head is painted with a. Rabelaisian 
 richness ; you cannot but believe, when you look at the 
 vast countenance, the tales of his feats in thinking and in 
 drinking, and in general capacity of body and of mind. 
 
 Jamie Balfour, in the act of singing " When I hae a 
 saxpence under my thoom." You hear the refrain 
 " Toddiin' harae, toddliii' hame, round as a neep she cam' 
 toddlin' haine." Mr. Melville of Hanley, with whom 
 have perished so many of the best Edinburgh stories, 
 used to tell how he got this picture, which for many 
 years hung and sang in his hospitable dining-room. It 
 was bought, at the selling off of the effects of the old 
 Leith Golf-House, by a drunken did caddy, for 30s. 
 Mr. Melville heard of this, went to the ancient creature, 
 and got it for 40s. and two bottles of whiskey. James 
 Stuart of Dunearn offered him (Mr. Melville) 80 and 
 two pipes of wine for it, but in vain. Sir David Wilkie 
 coveted it also, and promised to pay for it by a picture 
 of his own, but died before this was fulfilled. 
 
 Eaeburn's own portrait handsome, kindly, full of 
 genius. How is it that all painters glorify themselves 
 so delightfully ? Look at Vaudyck, Nicolas Poussin, 
 Hogarth, Rubens, Sir Joshua, and our own Duncan. 
 
 Like Sir Joshua, Raeburn has been well engraved on 
 the whole. The number of his engraved portraits 13 
 remarkable, greater than any British painter except 
 Reynolds. Mr. Drurnmond had 125, and there may be 
 ten or fifteen more. Beugo's vigorous and crisp graver 
 has rendered worthily Dr. Spens, " lord of the unerring 
 bow ; " and Charles Turner's brown mezzotint of Sir 
 Walter, and those of Sir Harry Moncreiff and Professors 
 Jardine and Robisou, and many others, and Walker's 
 stippling of Lord Hopetoun and Scott, are masterpieces
 
 358 SIR HENRY RAEBURX. 
 
 of their art. There is also one head in line by the fa- 
 mous Sharpe, besides Ward (painter of the famous Bull) 
 in mezzotint. 
 
 Raeburn is generally said to have failed in painting 
 ladies. I think this a mistake. He certainly is mainly 
 a painter of men; but this arose very much from his 
 having more men than women as sitters. Can anything 
 be more homely more like a Scottish gudewife, more 
 auld-f arrant than Mrs. Hamilton, the author of " The 
 Cottagers of Gleuburnie " and " Mrs. M'Clarty " and " I 
 cunna be fash'd," what sweeter, more " full of all 
 blessed conditions," than Mrs. Scott Moncrieff, now in 
 our National Gallery, and one of the loveliest female 
 portraits we know? as also is Mrs. Gregory, now in 
 Canaan Lodge, a beautiful woman and picture, and Mrs. 
 Kennedy, mother of the staunch intrepid old Whig of 
 Dunure. 
 
 I shall mention only one other portrait, it is of the 
 true heroic type the full-length of Lord Duncan, in the 
 Trinity House of Leith, which might without misgiving 
 hang alongside of Sir Joshua's Lord Heathiield, holding 
 the key of Gibraltar in his hand. It is, as we have said, 
 a heroic picture. The hero of Camperdown and captor 
 of De Winter is standing at a table with his left hand 
 resting on the finger-tips a favorite posture with Rae- 
 burn ; the right hanging quietly at his side and its 
 distended veins painted to the life. It is the incarnation 
 of quiet, cheerful, condensed power and command. The 
 eyes, bright, almost laughing and at their ease, the 
 mouth, fixed beyond change, almost grim, the whole 
 man instinct with will and reserved force. The color- 
 ing is exquisite, and the picture in perfect condition. 
 
 I end with the following excellent estimate of Rae-
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 359 
 
 burn's merits as an artist : " His style was free and 
 bold, his coloring rich, deep, and harmonious. He had 
 a peculiar power of rendering the head of his figure 
 bold, prominent, and imposing. The strict fidelity of 
 his representations may in a great degree be attributed 
 to his invariable custom of painting, whether the prin- 
 cipal figure or the minutest accessory, from the person 
 or the thing itself never giving a single touch from 
 memory or conjecture. It has been judiciously said that 
 all who are conversant with the practice of the Art must 
 have observed how often the spirit which gave life and 
 vigor to a first sketch has gradually evaporated as the 
 picture advanced to its more finished state. To preserve 
 the spirit, combined with the evanescent delicacies and 
 blendings which nature on minute inspection exhibits, 
 constitutes a perfection of art to which few have at- 
 tained. If the works of Sir Henry Raeburn fail to ex- 
 hibit this rare combination in that degree, to this dis- 
 tinction they will always have a just claim, that they 
 possess a freedom, a vigor, and a spirit of effect, and 
 carry an impression of grace, life, and reality, which 
 may be looked for in vain amidst thousands of pictures, 
 both ancient and modern, of more elaborate execution 
 and minute finish." He recorded men rather as Field- 
 ing than as Richardson had they handled the brush 
 instead of the pen would have done; still the per- 
 fection is when both qualities are at their best in one 
 man, as in Da Vinci and Titian and Holbein. 
 
 Since writing the above I have been to Charlesfield, 
 the residence of Sir Henry's grandson, L. TV. Raeburn. 
 I wish I had been there before. It is a snug old Scotch 
 house near Mid-Calder, on a burn of its own, which 
 paraffine has defiled with its stench and prismatic films.
 
 360 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 I shall never forget it, nor the kindness of the three 
 friends who showed me their cherished treasures, and 
 who inherit the simplicity, heartiness, and glowing rich 
 eyes of their .grandfather. The house is overrun with 
 the choicest Raeburns. 
 
 In the lobby there is a big man, as many stones weight 
 as the Claimant, who is handed down as an Irish Duke. 
 Then there is Francis Jeffrey when in his prime very 
 fine keen and kindly, the beautiful, sweet, mobile 
 mouth, the rich, brown eyes. A head of the Duke of 
 Gordon finished and noble. There was a comico-trag- 
 ic story attached to this. The head was once on a full- 
 length body in the Highland dress ; there being so little 
 room in the house, or rather so many pictures in it, this, 
 the last Duke of Gordon, the " Cock of the North," 
 was put in the nursery, and my friend the master of the 
 house said, ashamedly, that he and his brother used to 
 send sundry pennies through the person of his Grace? 
 and shot arrows plentifully into his sporran, and all over 
 him, so much so that the body had to be destroyed. 
 Our friend is penitent to this day. In the lobby are 
 several of the animal-painter Howe's spirited oil sketches 
 of cart-horses and ploughmen, full of rough genius and 
 "go." In the dining-room are the heads of his famil- 
 iars whose full portraits he had done painted from 
 love and for himself. I question if any such record of 
 pictorial genius and friendship exists. The walls are 
 literally covered. There is Cockburn with his melan- 
 choly, wonderful eye, with a joke far in ; Skirving, the 
 crayon portrait-painter, full of fire and temper, fit son 
 of the man who wrote " Hey, Johnnie Cope " and chal- 
 lenged one of his affronted troopers to combat. 
 
 Reunie, the great engineer the large, powerful,
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 361 
 
 constructive beaver-Yike face of the inspired millwright 
 of East Linton. 
 
 Professor Dalzel exquisite for delicate, refined ex- 
 pression and sweetness the lactea ubertas of the dear 
 old man, his Analecta Majora and Minora lying on 
 the table. 
 
 Besides many others, over the fireplace is a life-size 
 portrait of Mr. Byres of Tonley, 1 whom we have men- 
 tioned as at Eome with Raeburn ; this was painted long 
 after, and is of the first quality, done with the utmost 
 breadth of felicity. The ruffles of his shirt are still of 
 dazzling whiteness, as if bleached by the burn-side. At 
 the fireside is a small head of Ferguson the poet, by 
 Runciman intense and painful, the eyes full of peril- 
 ous light and coming frenzy, in color dingy beside the 
 glow of Raeburn. It is not the same portrait as the one 
 engraved in his works, also by Runciman. In a bed- 
 room is Professor Playf air very fine ; Mr. Edgar ; 
 and a most curious portrait of Raeburn's son and his 
 horse : the horse is by Sir Henry strong, real, per- 
 fectly drawn ; the son, painted after his father's death, 
 is by John Syme, remembered by some of us for his 
 wooden pictures. Anything more ludicrous than the 
 strength of the horse's portrait and the weakness of the 
 man's I never saw ; it is like meeting with a paragraph 
 by the worthy Tupper, or some other folk we know, in 
 a page of Thackery or Swift. A comical incongruity 
 of the same kind was shown to me by Mr. James Drum- 
 mond, R. S. A., who knew and had so many things that no- 
 body else had or knew. It is the record of a clever dodge. 
 Mr. Hat ton, the print-seller, had a fine print of Dr. Thomas 
 Hope, Professor of Chemistry in the University, 
 l He was the cicerone of Gibbon in Eome.
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 whose only joke, by the by, I well remember, and apply 
 it, sometimes to other than gaseous bodies, when 
 lecturing upon hydrogen, he used to end with " In fact, 
 gentlemen, in regard to this remarkable body, we may 
 almost say that it is possessed of absolute levity." Well, 
 Hatton, when George the Fourth came to Scotland, and 
 we were all mad about him, from Sir Walter downwards, 
 having made his utmost out of the plate as Dr. Hope, 
 scraped his head out and put in that of the bewigged 
 and becurled " First Gentleman in Europe." The rest 
 of the plate remains unchanged, except the royal arms 
 on the book, and the Star of the Garter on the Doctor's 
 breast ! Dr. Hope had not much of the heroic in his 
 face or nature, but his head by Raeburn keeps its own 
 and more against that of His Most Gracious Majesty 
 by Mr. Hatton ; it is altogether one of the best of 
 jokes. Maxwell of Pollok the head finished on the 
 naked canvas amazing freshness and vigor, as if done 
 at a heat. Henry Mackenzie, " The Man of Feeling " 
 very fine. 
 
 TJp-stairs on the landing, Lady in green silk pelisse, 
 through whose body had gone another nursery penny, 
 now neatly healed. 
 
 Mrs. Vere of Stonebyres, Sir Henry's step-daughter, 
 lying asleep, her head on a pillow a very fine study. 
 
 My eye was arrested by a portrait above a door; it 
 was the head and neck, life-size, of a young man of 
 great beauty. This, my friends told me, was the por- 
 trait of Peter Raeburn, Sir Henry's eldest son, painted 
 by himself, when he knew he was dying of consump- 
 tion, and given by him to his mother! His father used 
 to say that if he had lived he would have far surpassed 
 him.
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 363 
 
 The drawing-room is crowded with perfections. When 
 you enter, above the fireplace is his own incomparable 
 portrait, than which as our President of the Royal 
 Academy says no better portrait exists: it glorifies 
 the little room, and is in perfect condition ; the engrav- 
 ing gives no full idea of the glow of the great dark 
 eyes, the mastery of touch, the ardor and power of the 
 whole expression. Opposite him is his dear little wife, 
 comely and sweet and wise, sitting in the open air with 
 a white head-dress, her face away to one side of the 
 picture, her shapely, bare, unjewelled arms and hands 
 lying crossed on her lap. 
 
 Boy with cherry very like Reynolds. Then there 
 is another funny incongruity : Mrs. Raeburn, his sou's 
 wife, a woman of great beauty, a sister of that true hu- 
 morist to whom we owe " Sir Frizzle Pumpkin," and 
 much else the Rev. James White is sitting with 
 two young Edgars at her knees. Her head and bust 
 are by Sir J. Watson Gordon, the youngsters by Rae- 
 burn, and oh ! the difference ! 
 
 Dr. Andrew Thomson, the great preacher and ecclesi- 
 astical pugilist very powerful. 
 
 Next him, in the corner, is the gem of all, a little oval 
 picture of Eliza Raeburn, his eldest granddaughter, who 
 died at six; there she is lovely, her lucid blue eyes, 
 her snowy bosom, her little mouth, just open enough 
 to indicate the milk-white teeth, the sunnj hair, the 
 straightforward gaze, the sweetness ! It is not possible 
 to give in words the beauty of this ; Correggio or Gior- 
 gione need not have been ashamed of it, and there is a 
 depth of human expression I have never seen in them ; 
 .she was her grandfather's darling, and she must be of 
 every one who looks at her, though she has been fifty 
 years in her grave.
 
 364 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 Thomson of Duddingston heavy and strong. 
 
 I was confirmed by the grandchildren as to the sim 
 pie, frank, hearty nature of the man, his friendliness 
 and cheery spirit, his noble presence six feet two 
 and his simple, honest pleasures and happy life. 
 
 I am indebted to Mrs. Ferrier, widow of Professor 
 Ferrier of St. Andrews, and eldest daughter of Pro- 
 fessor Wilson, the renowned " Christopher North," for 
 the following recollections of St. Bernard's House and 
 the Raeburn family. She was then about six years of 
 age. Our first parents " skelpin' aboot " before the Fall, 
 and before " Shelly " in his old white hat, is a great 
 idea. 
 
 " More than half a century ago I was frequently in 
 my childhood at St. Bernard's House, on the banks of 
 the Water of Leith, which were in those days green 
 and smooth to the river's edge. This old house was 
 reached by a broad avenue of trees and shrubbery from 
 Ann Street, where we lived for some years ; this would be 
 about 1820. This interesting old house was surrounded 
 by large green fields, a fine orchard of apple and pear- 
 trees, and leading from this was another avenue of old 
 stately elms, part of which still remain with the rookery 
 in St. Bernard's Crescent. On the right hand of this 
 avenue was a nice old garden, well stocked, and with 
 hot-houses* 
 
 " In this ancient mansion lived the Raeburn family, 
 with whom we were very intimate as children and like- 
 wise school companions, though there were some years 
 between our ages. Sir Henry and Lady Raeburn, and 
 their son and his wife, with three children, comprised 
 the family party at this time. The great portrait-painter,
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 365 
 
 as far as I can recollect him, had a very impressive ap- 
 pearance, his full, dark, lustrous eyes, with ample brow 
 and dark hair, at this time somewhat scant. His tall, 
 large frame had a dignified aspect. I can well remem- 
 ber him, seated in an arm-chair in the evening, at the 
 fireside of the small drawing-room, a newspaper in his 
 hand, with his family around him. His usual mode of 
 address to us when spending the evenings, while he held 
 out his hand with a kind smile, was " Well, my dears, 
 what is your opinion of things in general to-day?" 
 These words always filled us with consternation, and we 
 all huddled together like a flock of scared sheep, vainly 
 attempting some answer by gazing from one to the 
 other ; and with what delight and sense of freedom we 
 were led away to be seated at the tea-table, covered 
 with cookies, bread and butter and jelly ! From this 
 place of security we stole now and then a fearful glance 
 at the arm-chair in which Sir Henry reclined. After tea 
 we were permitted to go away for play to another room, 
 where we made as much noise as we liked, and gener- 
 ally managed to disturb old Lady Raeburn, not far from 
 the drawing-room, where we had all been at tea on our 
 best behavior, in the presence of her great husband. 
 This old lady was quite a character, and always spoke 
 in broad Scotch, then common among the old families, 
 now extinct. I can never forget the manner in which 
 we uproarious creatures tormented her, flinging open the 
 door of her snus little room, whither she had fled for a 
 
 O ' 
 
 little quiet from our incessant provocations and unwea- 
 ried inventions at amusement, which usually reached the 
 climax by throwing bed-pillows at her and nearly smoth- 
 ering her small figure. At this juncture she would rise 
 ap, and, opening the door of a cupboard, would bring out
 
 3GCJ SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 
 
 of it a magnificent bunch of grapes, which she endeav- 
 ored to divide among us with these words of entreaty, 
 "Hoot, hoot, bairns, here's some grapes for ye; noo 
 gang awa' an' behave yersels like gude bairns, an' diuna 
 deave me ony main" For a short time the remedy 
 effected a lull in the storm, which, at the least hint, was 
 ready to set in with renewed vigor. She would then 
 throw out of a wardrobe shawls, turbans, bonnets, and 
 gear of all sorts and colors, in which we arrayed our- 
 selves to hold our court, Anne Raeburn being very often 
 our Queen. Beyond the walls of the house we used to 
 pass hours of a sunny forenoon in drawing a yellow 
 child's coach, which held two of us, who were as usual 
 enveloped in shawls and decorated with feathers and 
 flowers for our masquerading. There was a black pony ; 
 I remember well its being led up and down the long 
 avenue by an old nurse with some one of the Raeburn 
 children on it. When we were in quieter moods at play 
 we used to go up four or five steps at the end of the 
 passage leading to the great drawing-room, which was 
 seldom entered except on company days. We children 
 never quite felt at our ease when we stealthily opened 
 the door of this large apartment ; we imagined there 
 might be a ghost somewhere. There was a curious old 
 beggar-man, I must not forget to mention, who was fed 
 and supported by the family, by name Barclay, alias 
 SHELLY, so called not from the poet, but from his shell- 
 ing the peas, and who lived in some outhouse. This old 
 creature was half-witted, and used to sweep the withered 
 leaves from the lawn, manage the pigs, etc. ; short of 
 stature, of a most miserable aspect, on his head an old 
 gray hat crushed over his face, which was grizzly with 
 unshaven beard. He wore a long-tailed coat, probably
 
 SIR HENRY RAEBURN. 367 
 
 one of Sir Henry's, and always had a long stick in his 
 hand. We wished to be very familiar with him, but 
 were never at our ease, owing to his strange appearance 
 and his shuffling gait. He exercised a great fascination 
 over us, and we used to ask him to tell us stories, al- 
 though he was nearly idiotic "silly," to use a common 
 Scotch phrase. He often said, as he turned round and 
 pointed to the banks of the river, " Ou eye, bairns, I can 
 weel remember Adam and Eve skelpin' aboot naket 
 amang the gowans on the braes there." At times this 
 dirty, uncanny old man got hold of a fiddle, on which 
 he scraped with more energy than success. 
 
 . " After Sir Henry's death and our removal from Ann 
 Street, the old house of St. Bernard's passed into the 
 silence of memory, but I have alllny life been intimate 
 with the family " 
 
 We now part with regret from this fine old friend. 
 We have been nobly entertained ; it has been a quite 
 rare pleasure to rest our mind and eyes on his character 
 and works to feel the power of his presence his 
 great gifts his frank, broad, manly nature. We have 
 come to know him and his ways and be grateful to him. 
 We see him in his spacious room in York Place, hearty 
 and keen, doing his best to make his sitters look them- 
 selves and their best, instead of looking " as if they 
 could n't help it." He had a knack of drawing them 
 mt on what their mind was brightest, and making them 
 forget and be themselves. For is it not this self-con- 
 sciousness this reflex action, this tiresome ego of ours, 
 which makes us human, and plays the mischief with so 
 much of us, to which man owes so much of his misery 
 and greatness ? What havoc it makes of photographs,
 
 368 SIR HENRY RAEBURX. 
 
 unless they be of dogs or children, or very old people, 
 whose faces like other old houses are necessarily pictu- 
 resque. Sir Joshua used to suffer, as all portrait-pain- 
 ters must who wish to get at the essence of their man, 
 from this self-consciousness in his sitters. He used to 
 tell that the happiest picture he ever painted was done 
 in this wise : some Sir John had been importuned by his 
 family year after year to sit to him. He never would. 
 One day a friend came and said he was going to sit to 
 Reynolds, and wished Sir John to come and keep him 
 company. He was delighted, went day after day with 
 his friend, and was most agreeable. He was not allowed 
 to see the picture till it was finished, and then he beheld 
 himself ! a perfect likeness. If we could get the sun 
 to take us in this unbeknown sort of way, he would 
 make a better thing of us than he generally does. 
 
 In looking over Raeburn's portraits, one feels what 
 would we not give to have such likenesses of Julius Cae- 
 sar and Hannibal, Plato and Alcibiades, of Lucian and 
 JEsop, Moses and St. Paul, as we have here of Dugald 
 Stewart and Dr. Adam, Homer and Scott ? What we 
 want is the eyes, the soul looking out. There are genu- 
 ine busts of the great ancients, men and women ; we 
 know the snub nose of Socrates, the compact skull of 
 Hannibal, and we have a whole row of these tremendous 
 fellows the Roman Emperors, but we want to see ilie 
 eyes of Caesar and the keen, rich twinkle of Aristophaves. 
 What would a Burns be without the eyes ?
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT A WELL.
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT A WELL. 
 
 |SjHEN a boy I knew, and often still think, of a 
 
 well far up among the wild hills alone, with- 
 out shelter of wall or tree, open to the sun and 
 all the winds. There it lies, ever the same, self-con- 
 tained, all-sufficient ; needing no outward help from 
 stream or shower, but fed from its own unseen, unfailing 
 spring. 
 
 In summer, when all things are faint with the fierce 
 heat, you may see it, lying in the dim waste, a daylight 
 star, in the blaze of the sun, keeping fresh its circle of 
 young grass and flowers. 
 
 The small birds know it well, and journey from fav 
 and near to dip in it their slender bills and pipe each 
 his glad song. 
 
 The sheep-dog may be seen halting, in his haste to the 
 uplands, to cool there his curling tongue. 
 
 In winter, of all waters it alone lives; the keen ice 
 that seals up and silences the brooks and shallows has 
 no power here. Still it cherishes the same grass and 
 flowers with its secret heat, keeping them in perpetual 
 beauty by its soft, warm breath. 
 
 Nothing can be imagined more sweetly sudden and 
 beautiful than our well seen from a distance, set with 
 its crown of green, in the bosom of the universal snow. 
 One might fancy that the Infant Spring lay nestled
 
 372 SOMETHING ABOUT A WELL. 
 
 there out of grim "Winter's way, waiting till he would 
 be passed and gone. 
 
 Many a time, as a boy, have I stood by the side of 
 this lonely well, " held by its glittering eye," and gazing 
 into its black crystal depths, until I felt something like 
 solemn fear, and thought it might be as deep as the sea ! 
 It was said nobody knew how deep it was, and that you 
 might put your fishing-rod over head, and not find the 
 bottom. 
 
 But I found out the mystery. One supremely scorch- 
 ing summer day, when the sun was at his highest noon, 
 I lay poring over this wonder, when behold, by the clear 
 strong light, I saw far down, on a gentle swelling like a 
 hill of pure white sand (it was sand), a delicate column, 
 rising and falling, shifting in graceful measures, as if 
 governed by a music of its own. With what awful glee 
 did I find myself sole witness of this spectacle ! If I 
 had caught a Soul, or seen it winking at me out of its 
 window, I could have scarcely been more amazed and 
 delighted. 
 
 What was it? May be the Soul of the Well? May 
 be Truth ? found at last where we have been so often 
 told to seek for it. How busy, how nimble, \\ovf funny ! 
 Now twisting, now untwisting, now sinking on its bed 
 as if fainting with ecstasy, then starting bolt upright and 
 spinning round like a top ; again it would curl up like 
 a smooth pillow, and anon pause for a moment as if 
 hovering with out-stretched wings, and then fold itself 
 once more on its bed. 
 
 I have often seen it since, and it was always at its 
 work, and is so doubtless still, morn, noon, and night, 
 incessantly, and its out-flow all the year round was the 
 same. 
 
 Such is our well, at all times the same, full, clear, 
 deep, composed ; its only motion a gentle equable
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT A WELL. 373 
 
 heaving, its only sound the liquid gurgle of its over- 
 flowings among the roots of the flowers, its open face 
 reflecting the heavens, calm or in storm, and though 
 disquieted by every wandering wind, or dipping fly, or 
 scampering " well-washer," soon recovering its placid 
 face, while its depths rest forever untroubled. 
 
 Pray you have a heart like this well, full, deep, clear, 
 unchangeable, with Truth at the bottom ; and a merry 
 dancing elf there too, dancing to himself, "ever wealthy 
 with the treasure of his own exceeding pleasure." 
 
 In the time of hot raging passion, a fountain of cool- 
 ness. In shivering grief and bleak misery, a refuge 
 from the storm, a covert from the tempest, and at all 
 times a " balm that tames all anguish, that steeps in rich 
 reward all suffering, a saint that evil thoughts and aims 
 taketh away." Fearless alike of fire and frost, cool, not 
 cold, warm, not hot. How many such hearts are at this 
 moment beating in the bosoms of our mothers, wives, 
 sisters, daughters, as little known, it may be, as this 
 wilderness well, as full of goodness and love that never 
 fails, passing away in silence, and telling no tale of all 
 the good they do, and known only by the verdure that 
 conceals their course. 
 
 Long may thy springs, 
 Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath, 
 Send up cool waters to the Traveller 
 With soft and easy pulse ; nor ever cease 
 Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance 
 Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page, 
 As merry and no taller, dances still. 
 
 And long may our wells of living water find duty and 
 affection, and making the wilderness and the solitary 
 place to rejoice, their exceeding great reward, and else- 
 where spring up to everlasting life. 
 
 12th April, 1836. J. B. 
 
 1874.
 
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